A rose by any other name...

When my wife was pregnant, a large portion of our time was spent trying to find the "perfect name" for our little girl. After about three name books, and lots of hours pining over syllables, cadence and so on, we finally decided on something that we felt would be strong, yet feminine, and that could serve her well in any given situation. It amazes me, therefore, that there are parents out there that choose one of the most important identifiers a person possesses seemingly at random. Now, I understand that it's extremely difficult to pick a name you think "personifies" your baby when they're still in utero, but it seems that more and more, people are just stringing together random collections of letters and grammatical marks and saying, "hey, that sounds good, let's name him/her that!" My current work environment at the Juvie and Disability land, not to mention my stent on labor and delivery, has blessed me with an abundance of interestingly-named patients, and it seems that each day I encounter more people whose names defy convention. A caveat: I'm not trying to point a finger at ethnic or family names - I understand that there are multiple cultures out there that I'm not even remotely aware of, and so if I offend someone with such a name, I apologize. That said, the majority of the patients I see are not from remote, ethnically isolated areas, so we'll just chalk it up to family origins, and call it even. Caveat part two. The following names have been changed (slightly) to protect their owner's privacy. If you know someone with this name, it's purely coincidental.

I had seven patients on my schedule at disability this morning, two with very unique names. My secretary commented on this as she handed me my first chart, and so with great interest, I opened it, and read the name appearing in the center of the page. "C'D'Marcus Andrewvyion Orionus Jones."  Wow. My first thought was "how is this kid going to fill in standardized bubble sheets. I don't think they have a "bubble" for apostrophes." My second thought, unfortunately, was, "Well, he probably won't be filling in too many of those." Terrible, I know.  The next patient was a super thin, platinum blonde named Aiessence Princess Strong. I asked her how to pronounce her first name, and she responded, with a "how stupid are you" glare, "Essence." Ah, ok, two silent vowels at the beginning of the name. I've seen that before...
Speaking of silent letters, I had a patient at the Juvie earlier this week whose name was Jernesha. When the nurse said, "Good morning Jernesha, what can we do for you today?" the patient corrected her, saying "it's Jeresha, the "n" is silent." I personally have never heard of a silent "n," let alone in the middle of the word, before, at least not in English.
The list goes on and on. I'm sure that most of us have heard of at least one or two names in our lives that make us say "what were those parents thinking?" My wife thinks that the naming issue is exacerbated by Hollywood, and the random assortment of names celebrities give to their kids. Names such as (and I'm not making these up) Fifi Trixibelle, Moxie Crimefighter and Miller Lyte send the message "it's ok to mix random nouns; your kids will love you for it." I mean, why not just open the dictionary, pick two words at random, add a hyphen and call it a name. If I were to use that method to name my next child, their name would be Estrus-Agronomics. Personally, I think that name is pretty sweet, but I would never subject my child to being associated with the menstrual cycles of animals. The fact of the matter is this: we as parents have the responsibility to bless our children with names that they will be proud of, and that will set them up for success. This is not to say that uncommon or strange names will keep one from advancing in the professional world, but how many Fortune 500 executives are named Dweezil? Likewise, giving a child a name that is incredibly difficult to pronounce, spell or has multiple interpretations can lead to frustration, not to mention name-calling, at school, and therefore be detrimental to their psyche. Not every child can live up to a name like Vercingetorix (a Gaulish warlord) or Temujin (Genghis Khan's real name), Lord knows those bubble forms aren't long enough for such monikers.

And now for the disability quotes of the day:

Patient's written response to the question, "How does your condition keep you from working?"
"When I talk on the phone too long, my head starts spinning, and nothing helps. Not even loving my cat."

Me: "So what keeps you from working?"
Her: "It takes me too long to shave in the morning, so I can't get to work on time."
Me: "How long does it take you to shave your legs?"
Her: "It's not my legs that take a long time, it's my beard. It's very thick."
Me: "Oh...sorry about the confusion."
Her: "I get it a lot."

N'aame Winth (silent n) Kaire,
-DD



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