Before picking a weird baby name, think of the children
Naming a baby is one of the first decisions parents face.
You sit down with your partner, brainstorm, draw up a short list, try not to let the bickering stray off topic — “If we name her Crystal, it’ll remind me about how you never do the dishes” — then agree on one. The trick is to discover a name that reflects your sensibilities while avoiding a name that may leave your child prone to a lifetime of ridicule and therapy.
It’s a trick many parents are now fumbling.
According to a report this week in Entertainment Weekly, “Anakin” has cracked the Top 1,000 List for new baby names in the United States as a “a wave of parents (name) their sons after Luke Skywalker’s Sith father.”
With a new film due in theatres this December, it seems Star Wars has also stormed the nurseries of baby girls. “Leia” was the 509th most popular name last year, raising the possibility that a half-century from now there will be a startling number of middle-aged citizens nicknamed “Darth” and “Princess.”
At my daughters’ gymnastics class, there is no pint-sized “Khaleesi” swinging from the uneven bars. Not yet, anyway, since that handle from Game of Thrones was the 755th most popular name for girls last year. This trend of naming babies after fictional characters — Twilight, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey and Homeland have all inspired monikers — is not surprising in this century of strange names.
But is anyone really thinking about the children?
According to a survey by BabyCenter, 52 per cent of parents now prefer “unusual names.” This quest to be unique, to express individuality as procreators, resulted in some odd names last year as the world welcomed “Zeppelin,” “Moon,” “Saffron,” “Heavenleigh,” “Holiday,” “Castle” and “Nixon.”
Alcohol may have played a role when a few couples went with “Hennessy.” It’s possible the parents of “Yolo” are big Drake fans. Then there’s the ongoing role cars play when new humans are branded, as any 40-something named “Porsche” or “Mercedes” can now attest and, years from now, “Audi” or “Dodge” will confirm.
Here in Canada, we tend to be more traditional. Maybe we’re more conservative. Maybe we’re mindful of not wanting to clog the universal health-care system with schoolyard injuries due to bullying.
Whatever the reason, we don’t need the courts to step in prevent us from naming a child “4Real,” as happened in New Zealand. We don’t need authorities to say, “You can’t name your child the symbol ‘@,’” as happened in China. Future political leaders in this country are not likely to include a Prime Minister Ruckus, Premier Blaze or Mayor Eliminate, all of which are now real names.
You know what you’re telling the world when you name your child, “Cheese,” “Rocket” or “Phone”? You’re saying, “I haven’t given this much thought. I’m not considering what’s best for this innocent life. I’m being impulsive and selfish.”
Make no mistake, there will be a day of reckoning for the parents who recently named their children “Awesome,” a name that may prove grimly ironic if the tots fail to live up to the superlative: “Did you hear Awesome failed Grade 2 again?”
This is the problem with weird baby names: they create unfair expectations and judgments before the child has a chance to grow into an identity. This may not be an issue for the offspring of celebrities who inhabit a gilded vacuum, one that’s immune to the psychological trau- ma of being known as Petal Blossom Rainbow, Moxie CrimeFighter, Buzz Michelangelo or Titan Jewell.
But for normal children, those who will be expected to get along with others and eventually find a job, there is no upside in having a name that’s a potential punch line. And there’s a reason wacky names can be correlated with everything from lower tests scores to an increased risk of juvenile delinquency.
Do you really want little Gandalf to grow up to be an arsonist?
In 2014, Jimmy Kimmel put together a video of news footage, in which the criminal suspects had wild names. This included a “Cherrie Waffles Tennis,” who was arrested after trying to buy a speargun with a fake credit card. There was a “Batman Bin Suparman” who was jailed for drug offences. Then there was a 37-year-old man who was charged in connection with a fivevehicle traffic accident.
His name was Obiwan Kenobi. vmenon@thestar.ca