Nominal Fail

Summer sucks.

 

I mean, no, summer’s great, I love summer, summer summer summer.

Unfortunately, for certain people, summer comes with long, hellish stretches of monotony. My colleagues and I are trapped in one of those right now. And it’s gonna be a while before the drought ends.

So, for some reason, this gets me thinking about things that depress or annoy me about otherwise interesting topics. Something I love is “naming.” Now, that sounds sort of silly, but hear me out. I’m a writer (fiction, drama, what-have-you), and the kind of writer I am is one obsessed with details. If I have a character, and s/he has to have a name, well damned if I’m not gonna give that character a name bloated with symbolic significance. Count on tiers of meaning, some so subtle and unnecessary and nerdy that no one except me will ever truly perceive them. I love names.

And so does the rest of the world. Sometimes, in the worst possible way. This is something I’ve noticed; a plague which does not so much affect friends of mine as distant acquaintances or celebrities – but still, it persists. Allow me to share with you, the—

 

(Note: This idea is not really mine: A close friend planted the seed in my mind. I am merely the man with the cerebral watering pale.)

TOP TEN NAMES CHILDREN WILL HATE THEIR PARENTS FOR AND WILL PROBABLY RESULT IN THEM BEING TEASED, OSTRACIZED, OR DEVELOPING A PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEX THAT WILL HAUNT THEM UNTIL THE DAY THEY DIE (in short)

1. Fo’nisha! – [Exclamation mark included nominally] This is, I guess, a sort of racist pet peeve of mine. It doesn’t apply only racially, but that’s certainly where I see it mostly popping up, though it’s starting to happen with a lot of unfortunate white girls too. Firstly, the name I used in this example is just hilarious, because it’s a homophone of Phoenicia, the ancient civilization. But more than that, it’s an example of how people, to get in touch with either their heritage or, moreso, their familial individuality, assign these ridiculous names, sometimes nigh-unpronounceable, to their children. These names are punctuated with exclamations, apostrophes, questions marks, and asterisks; they have no origins in reality. Sometimes they are the bastard children of French, English, Haitian, Hawaiian, Sudanese, and Esperanto. They are strange little nomenclatural hatchlings, wandering about with no idea of their own parentage. In some circles, they will be popular, but from the Johns and Janes and Bills, they will get only a look of alienation. The same goes for the recent fashion of switching up the spellings of normal names to create “uniqueness.” I swear, if I see another “Brytni” or “Ahshleeey” or something, I’m naming my son Josef Vissarionovich and we’re going to get rid of these people properly.*

*Extra points if you know what I mean, and EXTRA extra points if you’re not insulted by that statement. Hyperbole, people, hyperbole.

2. Ku Klux Klancy – I would probably pay someone with this name just to not stand near me. Even if he/she was the nicest, most charitable person around, there is nothing more unsafe that having a “Non-Kosher” name. And some parents do this. During World War II, it was, of course, very common practice for those hosen-wearing German folk, generally unaware their leader was a genocidal psychopath, to name their kids after him – or worse, to name their kids after all leaders of the Axis. This resulted in the unfortunate event of a few Adolf Benito Hirohito Von Schprekenzideutsches running around in the early 1950s. This would’ve been a little easier for them if half of Germany had not, in fact, been controlled by Nazi-hating Commie Russia. Those poor kids. Nowadays, some parent might still have some bright ideas about sticking it to the nomenclatural man. I’m sure there’s at least one child of a new-age 60s communist couple named Fidel Castro O’Reilly, or Che Guevara Jones. The mind boggles.

3. Doctor – This one’s odd. I actually know quite a few people “known” by their professions. Or, really, just the name of a profession. I know a “Doc” a “Doctor” a “Baron” and a “Professor.” I myself was very briefly known as “The Surgeon” (badassilly shortened to “The Surge” until we realized how not-badass that was). But still, giving kids the names of methods of employment can only lead to tragedy. It starts out simple, with Banker, Secretary, Mayor, Flautist, etc. But then we go into multi-word territory, and obscure job territory, and now it gets dirty.

4. Mortigaunt – Mmm, a classic technique. Give a child this name, and let me tell you what you’ve done. You just plastered, or possibly riveted, a bumper sticker to that child’s forehead saying “EVIL” in big, neon-red letters which glow under blacklight. D&D generation parents, or just people obsessed with movies, videogames, fantasy novels, may think giving a child an “EVIL” name is a guarantee of them becoming a Genghis-Khan-level world conqueror (or, um, a 15^th Level Necromancer who took a class in Loner and another in Whoopass). But no; really, this is just going to cause all sorts of problems at school. I bet Sauron got picked on all the time as a kid because of how malevolent his name sounded. These poor kids have their career path picked out for them because of their birth certificates! Do you think Maleficent, Cruella de Ville, Grima Wormtongue, Saruman, and all these others ever had a point in their lives where they though “Y’know, maybe I could not be a horrific villain?” NO! They were doomed. I admire a few villains who changed their name from something less villain-y – Tom Riddle to Voldemort, and apparently The Lion King’s Scar originally had a less sinister name, until he turned into Jeremy Irons. (Note: Harry Potter still loses this game, based solely on the Epilogue of Deathly Hallows – what idiot thought it was a good idea to name a child SCORPIUS? That poor kid will be training his legos to do his genocidal bidding by age 5). Sometimes, people make their names evil, which can ruin it for others – Shakespeare and the Bible are particularly bad at this – good luck with naming your kid Judas, Goliath, Herod, Edmund, or Iago. Bad choices, people, bad choices.

5. Louie Louie (oh no!) – Another umbrella number. A caution against the occasional “unique” parental tactic of the Nomen Geminus © (that means, roughly, twin name, in Latin). People give children the same first name as their last. Now, in reality, this can work out great, if the last name is sort of a first name. Though it’s a bit risky, I don’t see a lot of problems with being “Thomas Thomas” or “Sylvester Sylvester” or even “James James.” It works and doesn’t work in fiction (i.e. Humbert Humbert) and in reality (Sirhan Sirhan?). However, the logical progression is not a happy place. Imagine a world of “O’Houlihan O’Houlihans” or “Von Hindenberg Von Hindenbergs.” It almost gets worse by country.

6. Euthanasia – This name is like a death sentence. I mean, not, like, a euthanizing-to-death sentence (damn coincidental phrase usage!). This is generally a problem daughters will have, not so much sons. The “ends with an A” thing can cause parents to think these are pretty, exotic names. Names like Anathema, Euphoria, Esoterica, and so forth. No, these names are not fair game. And if I hear one crack about how all the “Youth in Asia” are doing it . . .

7. Diligence – The practice of naming children after cardinal or theological virtues is hardly unpleasant. It has yielded some very pretty names. I for one find girls named “Hope,” “Faith,” “Charity,” or “Felicity” kind of cute. Then we get “Joy” and “Prudence.” And then, well, “Patience,” “Humility.” Now we’re in bad territory. Now the fundamentalist parents, desperate to instill some virtue in their nubile daughters through the rigors of naming, seek out some terrifying alternatives. Justice, Temperance, Liberality, Fortitude, and my two personal favorites, Chastity and Diligence. I pity the girl named Chastity. That’s gonna be awful for her college years. Even worse, imagine that poor, unfledged Episcopalian with the blonde curls, whose parents thought it might be nice to name her Virginity Brown. Oh, heaven help her. Heaven help us all.

8. You Knee Corn – Admittedly, I’ve never seen anything like this. But I assume it happens, and it’s just unfortunate. If you have a reasonable intellect, you figured out that “You Knee Corn” is just a silly homophonic version of “Unicorn.” This is an extreme example of a phenomena mentioned elsewhere in this list, with a twist. Some people want to give their kids names of “things,” (essentially meaning anything you would use as a category in your first query in a game of 20 Questions – animal, vegetable, or mineral), but they’re smart enough to know that naming their baby daughter “Daffodil” is a bit silly. Their alternative is MODERN SPELLING. Suddenly, Daffodil Adams becomes lovely Miss Daphodyl Adams. Which might be considered kosher in some circles, but I think it looks like something out of really poor Young Adult Fantasy. Extra Negative Credit for revised versions of precious stones – Saffyre, Jayde, Rooby, Ammathest. Generally, adding a Y to any name tends to make it worse, unless you’re replacing an existing Y with an I.

9. Laöcoön – Mmm, Greek names. I love Greek Mythology, as I love all mythology, as I am a lifeless receptacle for useless information. But naming kids after Greek myths has major downsides, cool as it might seem when you’re holding little Achilles or Perseus in your arms as he dribbles and drools his demigod-like saliva onto your arm. Greek names tend to be, well, Greek. Laocoon, one of my favorite minor mythic characters from the post-op of Homer’s Iliad, has a nigh-unpronounceable name. See those umlauts? No, it’s not “Lao-cooon.” It’s “Lay-oh-coo-on.” Four syllables, bitches. And there are worse. You know Hector, Paris, all those Trojan princes? Perhaps you don’t recall their unfortunate brother Deiphobus (day-ee-foe-bus)? And who could forget Asteropaios? Tlepolemus? How about Polyxena? Then again, this one has upsides. A lot of obscure Greek heroes also have pretty cool names. I happen to think Sarpedon (minor character from The Iliad) has a pretty kickass name. But for every Sarpedon, there’s eight Gorgythionedeses. Yeah.

10. Hjalmar – I only cite this because it is actually a very popular name in Scandinavian-area countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the area of Lapland, etc. I actually love this name, and I think it’s great for all those Swedes/Norwegians/Danes/Polar Bears who live out there. But in the rest of the world, saying “And thou shalt henceforth be called Hjalmar!” is essentially a parent entering their child in the “Most Likely To Be a Viking Warlord” sweepstakes. Frankly, most names that end we “-ar.” Ragnar, Muldar, Kevlar. Okay, maybe not the last one. But still, do you really want your book-smart ten-year-old who’s into computer science and has thinks girls have cooties to grow up to be a village-burning, woman-raping, language-skill-lacking Viking? Do you really?

And that’s it. My carpal tunnel is too intense to write a witty closing statement. So, I’ll just wrap this up by saying; for the love of God, don’t tell the police about last Sunday. It was an accident, I swear!

 Very Like a Whale, out like a light.