I can appreciate a great name. Parents spend hours and even years discussing what they want to name their children. There are even companies popping up that will help you pick out a unique name for your baby for the low, low price of $30K. I’m not even kidding, read about it here.
A name is such an important decision. It will be a defining part of your child for their whole life. Sometimes names come easily but sometimes names just don’t seem to come at all. Sometimes kids are named after family members, sometimes after friends, sometimes it’s just a name that the parents heard that they liked and sometimes parents just invent names.
In theory I love the idea of a unique invented name but in practice I haven’t heard many invented names that didn’t sound utterly ridiculous. Sometimes I want to pull the parents aside and ask them “What in the world were you thinking naming your child this crazy name?” Of course I would never actually do that, but I think it.
People also need to name their pets. Naming your pet isn’t quite the undertaking that naming your child is, but it’s still a big decision that requires a great deal of thought. Unless of course you are a child. Kids will name their pets in approximately 7 seconds. You can always tell when a kid names their pet. Kids give their pets names like Mr. Whiskers or Sir Barky or Ruff-Ruff.
My two-year old daughter has named one of her baby dolls after her baby cousin. It’s really sweet to watch her take care of her dolls and interact with them. The other day I saw her with one of her other dolls and I asked her what this baby’s name was. She didn’t even bat an eye, she just looked at me and said “Nine.”
Nine? That’s not a name, that’s a number. I calmly explained to my daughter that nine wasn’t really a name, that was a number. I gave her examples of names. Sarah, Michelle, Caroline…My daughter nodded and took it all in. I could really tell I had gotten through to her and had explained this very clearly. I asked her again to think of a good name for her baby.
She scrunched her face, she tilted her head and she she gave a quiet contemplative “ummmmm” as she was thinking. Then finally her eyes lit up and I knew she had decided on her baby’s name. She looked at me with pride in her eyes and said:
“Seven”
Hmmm. Apparently I didn’t explain things as well as I thought. Hopefully she’ll get better at this naming thing. If not, I’m eventually going to be the grandfather to Five, Eleven and Two. Maybe she’ll let her husband name the kids. Better yet, maybe they should just name all their kids after me! 🙂
This post rings true! I know of kids who’ve picked names based on TV cartoon characters or Disney princesses! And congrats on being the grandfather to Nine / Seven… Perhaps there will be twins and be named Fifty -Five or something!
Happy Friday!
Ha! This cracked me up 🙂 Fifty-Five lol That’s brilliant!
Happy Friday to you too!
Thanks: ) your post was great: ) have a great weekend!
If you watched Blossom you’ll recall the coolest character was named Six… she may be way ahead of her time with this one!
I was just thinking of Six in Blossom as I read this post. Long time ago now since that was aired.
If you recall the coolest character on Blossom was Six… she may be way ahead of her time here! Congrats on Nine, she’s a keeper 😀
It is astonishing how readily available kids have names, they don’t miss a beat. When I was pregnant with my son I asked my niece what I should call him and she said, ‘Jasmine’ when I pointed out it was commonly a girls name she just shrugged like, that’s your problem.
Ha! It’s true, kids don’t really get too caught up on gender norms until later. That’s funny!
Six from Blossom was also the first character to pop into my mind. I bet she was named by her two year old big sister. Cooper wanted to name Fletcher “Elephant” for the longest time. I’m glad we were wise enough not to listen to him.
I’m not sure it was wise to ignore the wisdom of young Cooper. Being named Elephant could have given Fletcher the extra edge he needed to become the greatest Sumo Wrestler the world has ever known.
I work at a hospital where I deal with tons of people every day. I’m constantly amazed at the names people come up with
My wife works in the Emergency Room and I know what you mean. She is telling me some of the crazy names she comes across too.
There was an episode of Seinfeld where two people are fighting over the name Seven. I think because it was Micky Mantle’s number. Is she sneaking up at night to watch 90s sitcom reruns?
Ha! She might be! I’ll have to search for a clip of that.
Lol, love her naming her dolls “Nine” and “Seven” – maybe they’re Borg dolllies? Thanks for sharing with #ftmob 🙂
I used to work for a huge insurance company. Some of the customer names were crazy. Amber Summer was one odd one that stuck in my mind but the wierdest was Chlorophyll.
Haha brilliant, kids will do there own thing whether we want it all not!