Thursday, July 19, 2007

Naming my kid

okay, so I don't have a kid, and won't for awhile. This doesn't stop me from contemplating this kid's name.

here is what I think - I should go ethnic. But what ethnic name?
When you google ethnic names I got 3 suggestions for boys: Brett (umm, this one might not count as ethnic any longer), Alban and Osgood. and 2 for girls: Aphra and Rainbow. This is when I realize that this site sucks.
I try again.
This time I get a blog post about how offensive it is to say "ethnic names" - to which I feel abashed for all of 20 seconds before laughing softly to myself in the airport. I can only hope that part of my charm is my love for saying somewhat offensive things. Like, to the coworker living with his girlfriend who said he wasn't going to marry her any time soon - So, you like getting the milk for free, eh?
anyhow, I figure I still don't have any good ethnic names for my kid and just googling "ethnic names" isn't working well. (2 sites into it. I have a short attention span)
Also part of the problem is that the charm in ethnic names is their tie to your origins somehow. When people ask me about my last name I do like talking about how my father's line first came to America in the 1700s.
okay, I am probably German/French/Danish/Swedish - so let's pick one of those. I don't really know how to pronounce anything in French, so I think that is out. German...it is so full of shhh sounds, I just don't know. Danish is the one turning me on right now, so let's google that.
uh. not so easy. It turns out that the Danes are squarer than the Germans. they have laws governing the naming of their children: http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/08/news/danes.php
In fact, this quote from the article causes me to feel worse about the "ethnic name" than that blog post did.
At its heart, the Law on Personal Names is designed to protect Denmark's
innocents - the children who are undeservedly, some would say cruelly, burdened
by preposterous or silly names. It is the state's view that children should not
suffer ridicule and abuse because of their parents' lapses in judgment or their
misguided attempts to be hip.


Is my desire to name my kid with an ethnic name a misguided attempt to be hip? Seriously, I would rather be anti-hip. Where are those names?
I am going to name my kids Jane and Fred. Can't get less hip than that.

3 comments:

KittyWithClaws said...

Bah, you're in America. Exercise your right to name your kid anything you damn well please - especially since they're going to be mooching off you for the next 18 years :P

loud said...

"Repress!"

loud said...

Brett is probably the least ethnic person I know...