Sunday I attended church. By "church" I mean The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By "attended" I mean "walked the halls with cranky babies".
As usual.
But this time I paused in my up-one-hall-down-the-other pattern to read the list of new primary classes for the 2011 year.
Oh my word, Utahns give their children the most ridiculous names! (If you don't believe me, check out this website). I even pecked a few of the worst ones into my iphone so I could remember to share them with David after our meetings were over.
Seriously, what would possess parents to give their daughter a lifelong headache by naming her Aarikkaa instead of Erika?
Sigh.
I understand that I am ultra traditional and ultra conservative when it comes to naming children. In fact, I am so paranoid about giving a child a confusing-to-pronounce or easily misspelled name that if I had known in advance how many people would mispronounce "Leah" I might have gone for something else instead. (For the record, it's Lee-uh, not Lay-uh).
While I understand the whole heritage or ancestry thing (using family names or names of cultural significance, that sort of thing) nobody, and I repeat, nobody has an ancestor named Jaxtyn. Besides, that's what middle names are for. If you have a relative whom you feel you must honor by christening your child "Nebuchadnezzar", for heaven's sake, do not use it as a first name! It is not cute or sweet to give your child a name that will force him to explain in job interviews that you were drunk when you named him.
It reminds me of my secretarial days when I picked up the phone and was greeted on the other end by a perky-sounding woman named "Jingle". I asked her to repeat her name for clarification, because up to that point I had given the human race more credit for naming their children and was pretty sure my ears had fritzed out on me.
"It's Jingle, like jingle bell," she sighed.
It's really too bad for her that her parents mistakenly thought they were naming a fluffy kitten. I mean, she could be nuclear-physicist smart, and yet, all it would take is one little introduction and you would be distracted from her accomplishments by the Barbie giggles ringing in your head. (Or "jingling", as it were).
Your children have great potential. Don't ruin it for them by giving them ridiculous names.
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4 comments:
There are some cute kids in our ward from Utah, whose names are Brizden (Brizzy), Rylek (not as bad), and Ledger (totally normal.) I don't get it either.
What? You didn't want Leah to be named after Carrie Fisher, aka THE princess of the galaxy? Awww... bummer.
Had a good laugh over your post. Ultra traditional over here too.
We met a girl at a hotel desk who was named Seabreeze. When she was born, her dad was in the Navy and her mom was a hippie. :)
Jingle?! Seabreeze?! Wow. And there are some crazy names on that list. I had to laugh that "Fionnuala" was on there. Very Irish name, not Utahn at all, or my girl wouldn't have it! Though I will concede it is one of the more unique names we come across...
Whenever I'm talking about your kiddos to Bran and Nuala and I say, "and there's Leah", even though I say it correctly, Bran usually asks, "like Princess Leah?". He even says it "Lee-uh" in those instances, even though he otherwise says "Lay-uh" for, well, Princess Leia... Guess when you have Star Wars on the brain (and I'm pretty sure a Princess Leia crush) you'll make any leap you need to ;) I love the name Leah, by the way, traditional, yet still rather uncommon.
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