Monday, June 26, 2006

Name That Baby



You know what’s fascinating to me? How every girl and gay man on earth over the age of four knows what they want to name their baby.

I would sooner give myself an at home abortion using a pair of rusty pliers than have a baby, but I still have names picked out. Elvira for a girl, Damian for a boy.

Ideally, I think children should be labeled until they're old enough to pick names out for themselves. We could just call them Female Baby or Male Baby, pending their ability to make choices for themselves.

When I was about ten I decided, as most little girls do, that the birth of my daughter was imminent and I had best start picking out names. I wanted something unique, so I picked out the most advanced looking book I could find on my shelves, and scanned it for things to name my kid. It ended up being a toss up between Monotony and Chlamydia. (Don’t even ask what kind of reading material my parents supplied me with in my youth.)

The tragedy is, most parents don’t fare much better than I did at ten.

My parents also wanted to name me something unique. My dad came up with Chartreuse, which was viciously vetoed by my mother. If I was boy, I was going to be named Private.

I asked two of my extra-special-baby-crazy friends (and one gay for good measure) what they were going to name their spawn and lo and behold, they already had lists. Spoiler alert: If you were thinking of using Ruby, Samantha or Grace- they’re going to be the new “Jessica”s.

Tangentially, when I went out with Tony he used to talk about what we were going to name our kids all the time. Regardless of the fact that I told him many times that I would never have a child, let alone his toxic flipper baby, he insisted on running baby names by me all the time….

“Babe, what do you think about Angela for a girl?”
“Nope. Not happening.”
“How about Anthony Junior for a boy?”
”No. Sorry… veto.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Vito’s a better name.”

Granted, the only names I’ve had to pick out thus far are names for my pets and aliases. Even then, though, I try to pick out names that have some sort of significance.

In high school, I made everyone call me Princess, because I was a great big princess.
When I had to pick out a "work" name for myself, I went with Fallon, because it sounds strong and powerful. It means “attack” in German, as I learned when a giant German Guard Dog lunged for my throat when someone called my name out one day. When I had to name my dog, I picked Molly, which means ”beloved”. When I had to name my pet rabbit, I picked “Scared Shitless” which means “so terrified of being touched that he craps himself whenever I come within five feet of him”.

Why not pick out an name that's pertinent? Something to do with the kids conception maybe, like "November" or "Black-Out drunk" or "PLEASE don't leave me"?

You know what else is fascinating to me? Ball sacks. Why aren’t more parts of our bodies made out of that material? So malleable, yet so sturdy… I bet if we had that skin between our arms, we could totally fly around and stuff. But that’s a story for another time.