Short Stories, Long Odds

Diana and I started talking about having children about a year and a half ago, and I knew we had moved from the realm of dreamy ponderance and into the area of serious business when the conversation about names came up. Names are secret things, full of power. When you start thinking about a future thing in terms of what it will be called, you are actually thinking about that thing and not just merely the idea of it.

I’ve always liked my first name, but I was never much of a fan of my last name when I was growing up. This wasn’t some subtle statement about my attitude concerning my lineage or any family traditions, but merely a response to the generic cruelty of children.

I was a mouthy skinny kid until I was a mouthy chunky kid, always cracking wise and developing humor as a means for both self-defense and and as a way to assert superiority. I was probably big enough to be a bully but I didn’t have it in me to fight, save for a few glorious instances in which, pushed to the limit by serious physical violence, I would turn into some sort of 3rd Grade Pitfighter and use my metal Transformers lunchbox as a weapon of hideous countenance. But the namecalling always went unpunished, save for the shining sting of a witty retort.

So, for years (and especially after moving to Cleburne) I was Josh Perfume. Or Josh Buttfumes. Some people would get unreasonably angry about my last name.

“What the hell kind name is Burrthoomm,” some enraged 11 year old would shout, punching me.

“You’re not a strong reader, and your father has poor credit!” I would reply, doubled over and sucking air.

And so it went. I knew there was nothing I could do about my last name, so I just had to be awesome enough so that other kids would get past it. I never succeeded in accomplishing that level of zen mastery, but it did instill in me, early on, the very solid idea that people make judgments about you based on thoroughly ridiculous criteria, and so I was able to be myself and not worry so much about what everyone else thought of me. And by the time I was 16 or so, I’d been around long enough so that everyone knew how to pronounce my name and the newness of transmogrifying it into clever variants had worn off anyways. Notice the fact that I never credit this change to all of us growing up or maturing, but rather instead to the mounting boredom of familiarity.

And I’ve always liked my first name. It has a pleasant construction and it works well with Jason, which is my brother’s name. There were plenty of Joshes in my grade and in the grades surrounding ours, and by and large they were all functional and non-homicidal. It is nice to meet someone who is your namesake and to find that they are totally normal and maybe even a little boring. On the other hand, it is disturbing to meet someone with whom you share a name and find out they are completely insane. Being a Josh means that the name is common enough to encounter both types but rare enough that most Joshes are fine. Being a David or a Sarah must be difficult.

I appreciated that my name could also function as a verb, but I did so privately. When people say they are “just joshing me,” most of the time they pause and then look faux-surprised and say “Oh hey! Just joshing you!” and I scream inside my own head a little. I don’t know why but this act of artifice always gets under my skin, but it does. I know they’ve been thinking about it for a while before they say it. If they just met me a few minutes ago, they immediately started building a conversation path around saying it. They want to say it. They need to say it.

And on the balance, that’s fine, because not everyone’s name works as a verb. You can’t Gary or Travis or Susan someone. And if your name can be used as a verb, whatever you’re doing to someone else is probably not pleasant. Getting joshed usually is, except when it happens under false pretenses.

So names are important. If you saddle your kid wth Mortimer or Zehfuss or Gaylord you’ll be paying therapy bills far beyond paying for college. This is because the cruelty of children is undeniable and inexorable, like rust or death.

You cannot, of course, give your child a mockery-proof name, but you can’t make things considerably more difficult for future assailant with just a bit of creativity. Jack can be made fun of in plenty of ways, as can Mark, Frank, Rick, or Steve, but these names are not inherently flawed, like Dudley or Hephæstus or Reginald. Do not name your son Dickbag or Optimus Prime, no matter how funny it might seem at the time.

Boys will get it the worst so you have to be very careful in the naming of young men: avoid anything that rhymes with socially unacceptable words as well as anything overtly weird like Cupid or Gammatron.  Save the family hand me downs for the middle name. And no last names as first names, unless you want your kid to be a news anchor or you are British.

Because girls find much more creative and sinister ways to be mean to each other, girls generally have an easier time of it in the Name Punishment Department, save for getting harrassed by boys. Avoid naming your daughter any name that is part of a popular song title from any decade in American history.

In general, don’t make your kid’s name unnecessarily complicated. For some reason (and for my whole life) very few people have ever been able to pronounce my last name correctly. I can understand some minor discrepancies - maybe you put the stress on the first syllable instead of the last, or maybe you say the U short, so I become Berthumb instead of Berthoom. But most people get to my last name and their eyes widen, and they start start stammering and suddenly they are asking if anyone has seen Mister Bert-Hummy. My favorite recent case was when a telemarketer asked to speak with Mr. Burtame.

For these reasons, if you want to name your child Susannah, don’t go all Tolkein and name her Su’zhanah.  If you want to give your kid an unusual name, go ahead and do it, but make it easy to spell and pronounce. Your kid will thank you.

Also, as much as I am child of my generation, I think faux late 90’s names are to be avoided. There’s plenty of Haydens in the world already.

As for our own potential kids, so far I like the names we’ve come up with. Diana talked me out of Alpheus for a boy but I was never really serious about it. She really likes Harper Mae for a girl, and today we thought about naming a boy Elliot. Although I said it really ought to be Eliot, like T.S. Sure, the spelling is different, but I can almost guarantee he’ll never be embarassed because his teacher can’t pronounce it on the first day of school.

Well, his first name, anyways.