the game of the name

For the first time ever, Psychology Today contains a kind of awesome article. Here, a few highlights from the magazine's report on trends in baby-naming:

  • "The current crop of preschoolers includes a few Uniques…" Sad paradox.
  • "New parents rattle off diminutives and acronyms as if reciting scales. 'I wanted a truly awesome, convertible name that could collapse into a normal name. Something like Charles Henry Underhill Grisham Sernovitz, because CHUGS would be a great college nickname,' says Andy Sernovitz, 33, whose son Charles Darwin Grisham Sernovitz was born last November." 1. CHUGS is not a normal name. 2. If names are fate, what assholic parent gives the gift of Rush & liver failure?
  • "'I hated my name when I was a kid,' Wven (pronounced you-vin) Villegas, 29, says. 'I stood out for all the wrong reasons. But I decided that if my name wasn’t the same as everyone else’s, then I wouldn’t be the same, either. Now I love my name so much that I had it tattooed on my right arm.'" That's the arm most people use for masturbation, right? (And I thought tattoos of ex-es were bad news.)
  • Here's your Best American Short Story entry, in a nutshell: "Nakazawa cites the cautionary tale of a young woman who was adopted from China by a white American couple who gave her a Chinese-sounding name. As a teenager, the girl began researching her heritage and discovered her name was not, in fact, Chinese. She was devastated."
  • "Michael Mercer, an industrial psychologist and co-author of Spontaneous Optimism, recalls a former co-worker who had interpersonal and legal problems: 'She changed her name to Honore, and it was her way of mutating from someone who goofed things up to someone who is honorable.'" Obviously, Spontaneous Optimism can have consequences.
Related: The most popular baby names from 2003 are now available at the Social Security Administration's website. Meanwhile, BabyNames.com irresponsibly alerts expecting parents to the possibility of naming their new arrivals after such LOTR characters as Fangorn, Farmer Maggot, and Wormtongue. (Last two links via Maud.)

Posted by nchicha at May 13, 2004 09:36 AM
Comments

mediocre minds think alike -

One thing that keeps me coming back to Chicha is the weird synchronicity I often experience here. There is the 11:11 thing. And you once posted about putting Montaigne on your reading list and I glanced down at a shopping list I had just written and Montaigne's essays was first on the list. Then this morning I print out the 2003 vs 1903 baby names list and sure enough... It's not a soul mate thing. My soul is definitely a loner. It is just weird sometimes.

I remember reading an Annie Dillard essay when I was a teen and she mentions that her cat was laying beside her on the bed biting the metal stitches she had in her belly and I looked beside me on my bed and my little white kitty was doing exactly the same thing.

Posted by: e on May 13, 2004 02:21 PM

I didn't sleep last night, so I'm pretty out of it -- and, for a moment, I misread

"she mentions that her cat was laying beside her on the bed biting the metal stitches she had in her belly"

as meaning,

the cat was biting the metal stitches on/in Annie's belly.

What a great moment that was, though. I should misread more often.

Posted by: N. Chicha on May 13, 2004 02:32 PM

Of course, not to be missed is Not Without My Handbag's "Bad Baby Names."

Somewhere, out there is a little boy whose first name is actually "Alpachino"

Posted by: Alejandra on May 13, 2004 05:27 PM

My sister-in-law has two daughters. They both have names that are in the top five of the years they were born.

The first time that happened, when it was brought to her attention she said, "Huh, weird."

The second time she said, "Dammnit! Why does everybody have to pick *my* names?" How is it that all these people wind up picking the same name? It boggles the mind (well, my mind anyway).

Posted by: rasputin on May 14, 2004 04:19 AM

The same image flashed through my mind as I reread that awkward sentence, but I was too lazy to correct it.

Posted by: e on May 14, 2004 02:04 PM
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