Thursday, November 18, 2010

The name game

My nephew and his wife proudly produced a baby boy yesterday.  Well, I guess actually they produced him about nine months ago, but he made his debut yesterday.  They have named him Dax.  I think that's short for Daxton.  My nephew made a reference to him as 3D, so I'm gonna assume his middle name will start with the letter D, because I know his last name is Dickens.  I think Dax is an unusual name, but I don't think it's too far off the wall.  I have a little trouble with 3D.  Atypical names are a part of my nephew's family.  His name is George Calvin Dickens, III (and thank you for not naming the new baby the fourth).  Since his grandfather was Calvin and his father is George, my sister Cathy started out calling her son Geo (pronounced Joe).  When he got older and decided he wanted to be a model and a movie star he changed it to Geo (like the car).  I don't care what he calls himself now (he's a fireman which I think is a far superior profession); he's still Geo pronounced Joe to me.  His wife's name is Elisa, which I think is a very pretty name.  They have a daughter named Aubrie which I think is another especially elegant name.  I'm still trying to make up my mind about Dax.


One of my great-nieces had a son last year and named him Max.  So we have Max and Dax.  Kinda like all those Jolie-Pitt kids with an X in their name.  I think his real name is Maxamillion (that's how she spelled it).  Which makes me think of a guy I dated once whose name was Million.  I thought that was really odd, until I discovered he was a junior, then I thought it was more than a little peculiar.  Seriously, someone named their son Million and then he named his son Million also!


So I've been thinking about names this morning.  My mother named all of her daughters a name that started with the letter C.  All six of us are named after some member of either my mom's family or our father's family, though I can't recall any other Glenn or Cynthia.  Glenn took care of that by naming his son Glenn.  But Glenn's middle name and Cindy's middle name are family names.  My oldest brother is William Harry Knight, III.  Thank goodness he was smart enough not to name one of his sons the fourth, but they did name their youngest child, a daughter, Wendy Hope to keep the W and H from his name.


When I was younger and thought I would probably have children at some point in my life, I decided I was going to name my daughter Brandy, but only if I married someone whose last name was Alexander.  Fortunately, I never dated anyone whose last name was Alexander.   I've never even tasted a Brandy Alexander and I'm not overly fond of brandy (the drink) anyway.


We all know someone with a really kooky name -- something like Honey Bunn.  When we lived in Florida I knew a girl named Merry Christmas and another girl named April Easters.  I often wondered what were their parents thinking?  I worked for years with a woman whose first name was April and her middle name was May.  She came from a family with about 11 kids, so I figure they just ran out of good ideas.  Which brings to mind that Duggar family with 19 kids all beginning with the letter J.  They're gonna have to start improvising soon if they keep adding to their brood.


When I was in school there was a boy named Richard.  I no longer remember what his original last name was.  Anyway, his mother remarried and his new stepfather adopted Richard.  Unfortunately, his new father's last name was Pritchard.  But Richard was no dummy.  Since he was changing his last name, he went ahead at the same time and changed his first name -- to Bruce.  No Richard Pritchard for him!  But, when I lived in New Hampshire there was a local female politician whose name was Dudley Dudley.  I think she actually came by that name through marriage.  If I remember correctly she married a man whose last name was Dudley, and did not have the good sense to keep her maiden name.  Maybe she thought it would help people remember her.  I suppose if you're in politics, you need some kind of gimmick to make yourself stand out.


I'm glad I didn't have any children for a number of reasons.  I wouldn't mind having grandchildren, but I seem to have skipped a very important step in that process, so I'll just have to live without any.  Still, since I had no children, I never had to worry about what to name them.  I have enough trouble naming dogs.  Of course, our dogs are our children, and most of the time they have people names.  It takes me forever to decide what to call a new dog.  Maybe that's why pregnancy is nine months.  It gives you plenty of time to pick out the perfect name for your precious little bundle of joy --  like Mr. and Mrs. Leir did with their daughter Crystal Chanda.

6 comments:

  1. Yes I was WHK that's true but I am now WHF. I had to mess up their plans and take my husband's name when I got married. Wendy Hope (Knight) Ferner

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  2. That's all right. We love John so we'll let you keep his name.

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  3. Growing up with the last name Tingle was very difficult when I was younger. The versions of Jingle bells people would sing, the perverse boys making comments, and it took a long time to embrace it. I worked at a casino in Atlantic City,NJ and they called me Tingle. I learned there it wasn't such a bad name afterall. When my sister got married I thought she was lucky to change her name until she told me her husband's last name, Ratti. I now truly love my last name because it could be worse! If she ever had a son her inlaws told her the only proper name for him would be Vito Ratti, her father in law's name. I'm so glad she has 2 daughters.

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  4. I imagine Tingle caused a few problems. Kids can be such brats sometimes and so inconsiderate. My mother's last name was Underwood, which, of course, ended up underwear and various other taunts. Vito Ratti!!! Oh, yeah. I'd be naming my kid that for sure -- NOT. I once had a man of German descent tell me my name was properly pronounced ka-nig-et. I told him since we were purely of British and Irish heritage with not a drop of German blood anywhere in our veins, I'd stick with the way King Arthur pronounced it. Sure, the Ka-nig-ets of the Round Table.

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  5. Nothing could be worse than the taunts I got- I was born in 1972. Wendy's restaurant came out with the slogan "where's the beef? between Wendy's buns" in the mid 80's, with that sweet old grey haired woman in the commercials. That didn't go over well in junior high. Then came the "Night Rider" TV show. The title of the show was enough. People would tease me "Wendy waits for the night to come" "Wendy's Open Late" so for a while I went by my middle name of Hope but they found ways to include it. "Wendy Hopes for the Knight to come" OY!!! it was hard being a teenager

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  6. Children are so mean. But now it's against the law to tease other children -- it's called bullying. As usual, they have gone overboard. True bullying needs to be stopped, but kids are kids and some amount of teasing is going to happen. Why can't people just work on the real problem and stop making trouble where there isn't trouble already.

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