It’s November—the month where pretty much anyone who got knocked up on Valentine’s Day is going to be birthing their larvae. So, since it’s child havin’ season, everyone should be aware of the consequences of their actions. No, I don’t mean drinking moonshine and smoking meth during pregnancy—though, that carries its own set of issues. I mean, what to name your child. This is one of the the first and most important decisions a parent can make and so many people do it absolutely wrong. Yes, you might deem that, for reasons formulated in your hazy cloud of late-pregnancy whimsy, it’s time to give your new child a completely unique name—one that violates all the unwritten (and, many of the written) laws of human decency. Read this guide, before you curse your child with a name that makes them wince when strangers try to pronounce it (or, makes it seem like you really wanted a dog, not a baby).
I’ll break it down into sections—categories, if you will—in which I cover the don’ts and, uh...the other don’ts of child naming. It should be noted, that any of the names I’ve mentioned are names I’ve looked up in a database and not just shit I’m making up, that nobody would ever use. This is shit that, unfortunately, people do use. If you wish to call my bluff, there are many such databases, and if you want to search how popular the name Cobra is for a child, it’s easy to do (BTW, I am not opposed to naming a child Cobra).
"Oh, no you didn’t," I hear you say, bemoaning the breakdown of these names as somehow racially-motivated. Well, I did. But, in 2019, we live in a world of opportunity, where people of all races, creeds or colors can be white trash. Don’t agree? I’m sorry you’re a bigot. Anyhow, avoid the influence of the trailer park, when picking a name for your offspring. What do I mean by this? Well, first on the list are double names: Jimmy-Ray, Carla-Sue and Peggy-Lynn...that sort of thing. Further points are deducted if the double name is a truncation of a proper first name—or, even TWO truncated first names, like Bobby-Jim or Roxy-Jo. Also, for girls, try to avoid names that end in "-lene," such as Lurlene, Jolene or Durlene. Names which sound like a cruel-hearted woman in a country song generally reflect more on you as parents than on the kid (until they grow up). Seriously, you never hear a country song about a woman named Penelope. For boys, perhaps eschew things that sound like hunting dogs, such as Trigger or Montana, unless you really need them running through underbrush to get that duck you shot.
We get it. You’re in touch with nature, milk your own almonds and do rails of essential oils instead of cocaine. Just because you feel like the freest of spirits, doesn’t mean you need to brand your young one as the product of your lifestyle. Bad names include those that ape some distant culture you fetishize as epitomizing your beliefs, like American Indians, regular Indians or Tibetan monks. Little Tenzin will thank you to not be named that. Worse, are names that are just natural phenomena or animals, like Rainbow, Waterfall, Gazelle(!) or Canyon. Also, try not to name your kids after the fact that you smoke weed. Mary Jane might be a perfectly fine name, but think of the twins, Dab and Shatter, who won’t fare so well.
This is like the opposite of hippie bullshit. A lot of names are just seemingly created by an arrangement of flowery syllables, put in one of those lottery ball blower devices and inked onto a birth certificate. Just throw a bunch of "De," "Da," "Le," "La," "Tre" and "Tay" in there, then cram some Roman-sounding suffixes at the end, like "-ius," "-cus," "-tia" and "-via." Also, toss a "Q" in there, for good measure. Can we ever have enough Qs in a name? I actually worked with a guy named De’Troit once. He was a tall redhead, somehow, and wasn’t from Detroit. I don’t know if he hated his name or not, but I think he’d probably rather have been named Fred or something.
We get it, you want to set your child apart from the crowd, but you’re too lazy to apply the above-mentioned trash, hippie or urban bullshit to your newborn. That’s when you take it upon yourself to start swapping vowels, substituting consonants and adding a "Y" where an "I" used to be (or vice versa). So, you could have just named your kid Allison, like a normal person, but no, behold the adorable little Alyssyn, who will spend a statistically significant portion of her life spelling her name out to clerks and registration or admissions people. Also, it’s no longer the mid-1990s, so please don’t thrust an unwanted "X" into a conventional name. Wee Jaxon will appreciate not sounding like the bad guy from a two-season television show titled Xtreme Something.
You know, they make baby name books for a reason. Giving a kid a popular name doesn’t mean they won’t stick out or be taken notice of in their lives. It just means that it won’t be because they have a goofy fucking name. Don’t name them for famous philosophers or authors. Don’t name them after characters from popular movies from your childhood (with an exception made for Falcor). The basic rule is, don’t otherwise give them something they’ll never live up to, because then the alternative is being a junkie (and nobody ever says they want to be a junkie when they grow up).
An anecdote: I was in a grocery store a while ago and heard that plaintive cry of a mother attempting to rein in a disobedient child, but something was just off. "Archimedes! Get OVER here!" that lady shouted. I turned to look, and the hipsterest hipster woman I’d ever seen was scolding a typical-looking (but, oddly named) toddler, dressed all in white, running roughshod through the store. I let out the quietest snicker I possibly could and immediately got a death glare from this woman, who then nudged her husband to follow suit...giving me the most depressed, weary look of modest hostility I think I’ve ever seen in an adult. See, it’s not just the kids who pay the cost of your misguided narcissism.
I apologize if your name is any of my examples. Blame your parents.
Name responsibly.
Signed, a guy named "Wombstretcha."
Wombstretcha The Magnificent is a novelty breakfast cereal antiquarian sitting on an unopened case of Urkel-Os, writer and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter as @Wombstretcha503 and on Facebook (or MeWe) by name.