After reading this article, I am wondering about a few things. I don’t have children and therefore have no experience choosing a name for a being. I didn’t even name my cat! She was an adult, answered by her old name and I found no reason to change it. While I really feel like you must be high or something to choose a name like “Fish and Chips” (see the article) for someone’s name, how DO you select a fitting name, something a person will be called for a good deal of one’s life?? I don’t know if my grandparents on my father’s side just drew a blank after the 14th child, but my dad didn’t have a name until he named himself at age 18! In their defense, he was born premature in the 1940s, delivered by a midwife (not to offend any in this important profession) and was never taken to a hospital. He weighted less than 2 pounds, and at the time, it was nearly guaranteed that a child that small would not survive. So they skipped the naming process (i mean he was going to die anyway, why waste a perfectly good name???) and low and behold, the little dude survived… nameless. They had all sorts of nicknames for him, but the most salient one was “Tad,” later adapted to “Ted” because that sounds better. They called him Tad though because he was little like a tadpole.. Got to give it to them for being original. I have to wonder if not having a name had a lasting impact on him. Until he was 18 years old, his birth certificate just said (enter grandfather’s name)’s son! I guess he can be happy that they didn’t name him Tad or Tadpole, since that’s what it was short for!

Legend has it that my mom (before she named me Constant Rain, of course) almost named me after a light fixture! She thought it was pretty, the name- that is (or maybe the fixture? I’m not sure). Fortunately someone talked her into Constant Rain, and I didn’t have to get teased all of the days of my life, or at least while I was in elementary through high school.

Do you have any interesting name stories that you’d like to share?