I collect them with glee. Names like Zoe Bowie, the daughter of
singer/actor David Bowie, or Atomic Zagnut Adams, the real life son of Patch
Adams, the character in the eponymous film played by Robin Williams. How dare
they, I wonder, give their children such fantastical names? And what do their
children feel about living with those names once past the stage where their
most purposeful communication consists of blowing a raspberry?
My sister once worked up a list of silly names she planned to bestow
upon her hapless offspring, and I marveled at her cunning derringdo. If Margery
had twin daughters she planned to call them: Polly Esther and Polly Ethylene.
Forget the fact that both girls would need to be called by both first and
middle names to distinguish them one from the other, didn't Margery worry about
soliciting the undying, eternal hatred of not one, but two daughters?
I was not just disappointed, but bored to tears...
I waited with baited breath when her first daughter, a girl, was born.
Which name would she choose: Polly Esther, or Polly Ethylene? It was, um,
neither. It is an unfortunate fact of life that sisters grow up and disappoint
those who expected more from them. My niece was named Davida. When I heard that
white bread name, I was not just disappointed but bored to tears.
Loss of respect
p>
I lost a great deal of respect for my older sister on the day my niece
was born. Margie busted a legend I had long held dear. On the other hand, she
did just what I intended to do: give my children respectable, yet humdrum
names, for I never considered the idea that I would give my own children any
but the most common names. I dreaded their growing up, as I did, with, for
instance, the initials: BM.
I told my peers that BM stood for Batman, that if they didn't stop
taunting me, he'd get insulted and come and beat them up. But they just laughed
and called out, "BM, BM," louder and louder, until I turned away so
they wouldn't watch me dissolve into tears.
I would not do this to my children, I vowed then and there. Years later,
I examined the names I gave my children in and out and backwards, in an effort
that their names, nicknames, and initials, escape all notice of their
schoolmates.
So let Bob Geldof name his daughter, Fifi Trixibelle. Let Frank Zappa
name his daughter, Diva Muffin. I collect their names with voyeuristic
pleasure, but me, well, I'll stick to names like good old, plain Jane. Let 'em
grow up and cry to me that I gave them boring. Thank me, that's what they
should do!
