Naming your Baby

If you’re a close friend of mine you probably know that I am a new Uncle. My sis gave birth to a healthy baby girl on 10/21. This was planned well in advance and the parents knew the gender before the fact. Still the list of names that my sister had compiled was startling to my eyes:

1.Bianca
2.Jenna
3.Brianna
4.Bly
5.Chloe
I should’ve stopped right there, but I kept on going, hoping things would improve…

6.Celeste
7.Thrista
8.Cali/Kali (Wasn't that the name of the diety worshipped by the Thuggee cult in Temple of Doom?)
This is where I first gave pause.

“How exactly did you pick out these names?” I asked my sister.
“I got this great baby name book and it tells you the language of origin and what the original meaning is or if there’s a Christian translation and-“
“Porno. That’s the language of origin here. You’ve picked out porno names for your baby girl. You want to do some research? Go to Google Image and type in any of these names and see what kind of pictures you get. And make sure you turn the ‘SafeSearch’ option ‘off’. I dare you!”

That’s almost verbatim how our convo went. Please note, I wasn’t angry or getting upset. If anything, I thought it was kind of funny that my sister was designing a life of snorting coke off of another chick’s ass for my new niece. A life of saline-filled breasts and making “special arrangements” to pay the rent. But I do hear that weather in the San Fernando Valley can be quite nice.

“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of…” -Socrates


9.Kianna
10.Madison
11.Asia (Yes, this was REALLY on the list)
12.Savannah
If your baby girl shares one of these monikers, then I apologize. Sure, it’s possible that one day Dr. Hooty McBoob and Tits McGee, PhD may share a Nobel prize in Medicine. I just don’t think that it’s too likely.

13.Hope
14.Charity
15.Faith (the holy triumvirate of vague, philosophical ideals)
I do believe that if you look for something with enough dilligence, you will find it. So maybe my filthy mind is just looking for something perverse in all of this mess. But if that list had contained one “Kate” or “Elizabeth” or even “Ashley” I wouldn’t be this compulsive about the ordeal.

16.Peri
17.[insert name of any planet from the solar system except “Earth” and “Pluto”]
18.Dru
19.Bailey
20.Saffron
When I was a teenager a lot of cool kids wanted to rebel by dressing like bums and having a generally unkempt appearance. After a few months of this behavior, 25% of the school fit that same description. Which also explains why there were tons of kids named Ryan, Jordan and Brett from my gen. Their parents were trying to be original to the point of being uncreative bastards. My name, Rupert, used to be quite common. But almost no one I meet is named Rupert these days. It’s kinda retro and coming back into style now, like skinny ties, jean jackets and aviator glasses.

If you want to name your kid something original try this:”Bonerbiter Jr”. I guarantee you that nothing will come up on Google Images for that one. Plus Dad won’t need to worry about overaggressive boys trying to date little Bonerbiter Jr. in High School… I think they’ll keep a safe distance. In the end it’s a choice that my sis and her husband need to make and my jurisdiction as Uncle is far from involved. And when my niece is old enough to talk and asks me who she was named after, I have a surfeit of options in .mpeg or .avi format with which to provide an answer.