Friday, June 01, 2007

Naming Conventions

I’m not the smartest man on the planet. We all know that. I have moments of cleverness, but these bits are few and far between. Most times I’m a dullard from too many video games in my youth and from staring at radiation spewing computer monitors for over half my life.

So it won’t surprise anyone when I say that it took me about twelve years to figure out that I had very little to do with naming our children. It’s true! I was there and made some suggestions, but Reha did it all.

Carrie Elizabeth — Named for Reha’s maternal great-grandmother. I chose Elizabeth, because back in the day, I liked stuffy sounding Victorian names. She goes by Carrie. Never been called Elizabeth. Ever. Beth? Nyet. Liz? Nien.

Edward Lucas — Reha liked Lucas for a boy back before we had Carrie, so this one was in her back pocket. I pulled the name Edward out of my booty and today he wouldn’t answer to it, unless you added “Lucas” into the mix. But then you are usually mad at him so he’s going ignore the name for a while anyway.

Robert Jonah — We saw some movie with a little boy character named Jonah in it and Reha fell in love with the name. I tacked on Robert so we’d have something official to call him when we were yelling at him. People call him Robert and he stares at them blankly. Kind of the same way he does when you say “Jonah,” but when you say “Robert” he not just ignoring you while he thinks about Legos and PlayStation; he has no clue who you are talking to.

Ellis Katherine — Technically Ellis is a male name, but Reha really liked it. It’s cute and it fits Ellis’ personality. She’s a princess, no question, but she’s a boy when it comes to beating the crap out of her family members, for example. I don’t think she’s ever heard her middle name, even in anger/frustration/other-things-like-that-which-happen-all-the-time-with-her. Since I still exist with a big ol’ stick up my butt, I tossed Katherine into the mix.

Are you noticing a trend? Reha chooses the name we call them. I choose the “throwaway” name. Basically, Reha got to do all the “good” naming. I got shafted. True, we gave each other veto power, but that was just to prevent me from naming babies “Bob the Duck,” “Slagathor,” “Cromulent,” “Harvey” (that one would have been AWESOME for Ellis), “Habakkuk” (was feeling Biblical that day) and “Obi-Wan.” Did I realize I was getting shafted at the time? Nope, not a bit.

OK, that’s not really quite true. After the third kid I figured out what was going on. See how bright I am? My role was sperm donor and toss off name guy, it seems.

But you need to understand that not only am I terribly dumb, but that Reha is also pretty crafty. Somehow she made it through three kids before woke up from my stupor and said, “Hey! How come you always choose the ‘good’ name?” And honestly, I have to say that it is my esteemed opinion that she KNEW what was happening. And she also probably figured there was a good chance I’d never catch on. The odds of me not finding a clue were high. Because when I finally got around to asking that question, she got all coy and sheepish, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just realized that I always end up picking the name we DON’T end up calling the kid. You are really doing the naming.”

“No. We pick the names together. We agree on the name. Names. We agree on the names.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not exactly the case. You came up with the names for all of them and those are the names everyone calls them.”

“Well, you could have come up with something, you know. And you had veto power on all of them. Plus you choose names for them, too.”

“Right, I got to choose the disposable names. After you had essentially filled out the birth certificate in your head.”

You can begin to see why she’s so very good at her job as an attorney, can’t you? I rarely “win” an argument with her. She gets all logical and stuff.

Though in the end I’m pretty happy with her choices. They fit the kids nicely. Plus, she had to go through the pain, purgatory and puking of pregnancy, she should get to name them anything she wants. Remind me to tell you some birthing stories. Let’s just say this: She did NO drugs or epidural and went completely au natural when Ellis was born and they made us move to another area, because the noises she was making were terrifying the other birthing moms on the floor. So after all that she can call the little beast anything.

Though “Slagathor” would have just been wicked cool. “Slaggy” for short.

1. I’m glad moms have this power.  My dad wanted to name me “Carolina Moon”.

   He also wanted to name me “Helen Wheels”, but I think that was something he came up with after a few drinks, and it was a joke by morning.  I’m not saying Carolina Moon wasn’t the product of a drink or two, just that he wasn’t joking about wanting to name me that.

   Posted by Jenna  on  06/01/07  at  09:14 AM

2. My mom named 3 out of 4 of the kids in our family.  My poor father-named-brother got stuck with Norman.

   Posted by michael  on  06/01/07  at  09:36 AM

3. There’s a little girl in Jonah’s 3rd grade class whose name is “Alabama.” Kind of odd.

   Actually, Carolina isn’t that bad, but that’s probably because it has the name “Carol” contained within. Once you were older you could have said, “my name is Carol, thanks very much” and only people looking at your license would have known the difference.

   “Carolina Moon” though… yeah, that’s not right. Norman’s not so hot, either. :-]

   Posted by jon  on  06/01/07  at  09:42 AM

4. Norman’s working pretty well now that he’s 40 and some sort of research chemist, but he caught hell as a kid.

   I almost got named Dallas, dad thought it would be cool to name the kids after cities.  I could handled being called Dallas

   Posted by michael  on  06/01/07  at  10:01 AM

5. Carolina probably would have morphed to “Caroline” or “Carrie”, but I’m not sure.  When I was growing up, *no one* was named Jenna, and I thought it sounded, I don’t know, abrupt.  I wanted desperately to go by “Catherine”, which is my middle name, but my mom kept saying, “People would call you “Cathy.” Why would you want to trade “Jenna” in for “Cathy?"”

   Now I’m glad I kept Jenna.  It fits me.

   Posted by Jenna  on  06/01/07  at  10:53 AM

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