What's in a name?

"What's in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would were he not Romeo call'd..."

I feel sorry for this next generation.  I really do.  Names have become sort of a free for all with parents these days.  It's not just the Hollywood types that are forever dooming their kids to  weird looks and teasing.  We almost expect these eccentric types to name their kids things like "Apple" and "Pistol" and "Moon Unit".  It's just their way of proving to the world, once again, how unique and unlike "us" they are.

The trouble is,  it seems like everyone is doing it now.  They tell you it makes their kids unique.  It makes them stand out.  Ok, I will agree with standing out.  But when everyone does it, how unique is it really?


I'm all for being yourself.  But you are asking for trouble down the line when you  name your kid "Messiah", "Adolph" or "El Presidente".  Those are some tough names to live up (or down) to. "Butterbean", "Phone" and "Butt" (honest, those are names people actually named their kids! ) aren't any better.

Then there are those people who can't even be satisfied with real words.  They make them up because they sound good.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that I've seen kids named things that you can't even begin to pronounce ("Jal'ee- It's Jaleal, with a silent second 'L' ")  L-A (Ladasha).  Then there was Femalea and Maleb.  You guessed it, mom thought the  hospital named the twins for her when they put "female A" and "male B" on the baby's arm bands.

Combining mom and dad's name to come up with something new is cute.  At least until the paternity test comes back and Maury says he's NOT the daddy.  That one has caused more than a few arguments in the NICU.

My favorite story about names was one delivery I attended where the mom had decided to gift her child with a most unusual name.  To this day, I can not tell you how it was pronounced or how it was even spelled.   I did ask mom before we took the baby to the nursery for observation how to spell the name so we could make a sign.  Mom's reply to me was "S-C-H...no, S-H, no, S-S... Oh how the f*** am I supposed to know?!"

It's not twitter that is making these kids unable to spell, lovies...

I wonder what is in store for some of these kids down the line.  As someone with a long and unusual surname, I grew up with the stigma of every single teacher I ever had stumbling and mispronouncing it.  Not to mention that every single award I ever won had letters transposed or just flat out missing.

Names on a piece of paper are your first introduction to some areas of life.  I'm not sure how far the resume of someone named "Poopy Mcfart-Paste"  will be passed up the hiring chain of command.