My wife is in that magical time of life romantically described in demography journals as “childbearing age.” Now the male privilege is we are ready for creating a child, if you ask us, from age 11 to approximately 118. Though nature offsets this by making us suitable for childrearing only from ages 34 to 36. But women, a category which I’m still mostly sure includes my wife, share the affliction of the dreaded biological clock. This means they have just a few precious years, usually around age 25 to 35/45 unless you’re in Alabama, in which its biologically possible and socially practical to procreate. Cruelly, after the clock strikes midnight, the childbearing time is done—just in time for their male peers to start getting interested.
In the past this created quite the strain on the human race resulting in various religious and civic duties of childbearing. “There’s no greater honor for a woman than to have a child,” the authorities would say back in the day, “because they’re not allowed to do anything else.” In short, having a child was a big deal.
To these religious and patriotic duties my wife and I have successfully procreated at least twice, as demonstrated by the birth of our second child a short time ago. The reproductive process in both instances was fun (for me anyway) until about that point in pregnancy where you’re faced with another religious and civic duty: picking a name.
My wife took this very seriously. She is a schoolteacher by training, and so was always concerned during the process how our chosen name might get made fun of by the other children when our angels, so long as they don’t take after their father too strongly, are required to go to school. She learned this neuroticism from her family, of course, who argued around the birth of the first grandchild whether “Conor” might—I’m not joking—sound too much like “boner.”
They’re right—kids have a remarkable ability for mean spirited wordplay, usually revolving around rhyming. God forbid they ever find out that the car you drive is, for example, a “PT Cruiser.” You can bet some squirt with otherwise the intelligence of your average doorknob will quickly discern this sounds an awful lot like “Pee Pee Loser,” and just like that ruin your summer as a camp counselor.
But I don’t think we should put too much thought into it. Kids are so clever in this regard they’ll find some point of attack regardless of if your name is “Randolph Fartschmacker” or an unpronounceable series of Proto-Elamite hieroglyphics.
In fact, I argue that trying too hard to avoid negative name association will only make the problem worse. I’m of the belief children can, in fact, turn any name into a slight, mostly because their standards are—and I’m being generous here—not very high. A short, common name like “Luke” could be twisted into “Luke the Kook” with perfect confidence and effectiveness, despite the obvious fact that “Pukey Lukey” is a much more natural turn of phrase. And yet, supposing you have some exceptionally refined (or just plain stupid) group of bullies who will not or cannot come up with such examples. What then? They’ll just resort to “Stupid dumb dumb poopy pants Luke” with just as much—let’s be honest, even more—devastation as the more traditionally clever name calling.
There’s also the unavoidable problem of the child’s last name. Very often time-tested insults are already in circulation for common surnames, and “Lucas” is no exception. Give the children such an option on a silver platter, and they will reflexively take it. But give them a jumble of syllables that will make their little brows furrow in even momentary effort? Well, this is a recipe for revenge. I would rather my son be called “Mucus Lucas.” That’s predictable, and thanks to the advent of modern nasal sprays, far enough from his likely-reality that it shouldn’t cut too deep. But “big-dumb-stupidhead-mcgoo-who-no-one-likes-and-smells-like-barf-bags-and-will-never-get-a-girlfriend-Lucas”? That one stings for a while. Trust me.
So, my wife and I had different naming goals in mind when we were naming our eldest. My wife was checking and cross-checking every possible name in the English language, while I already had an easy, smooth choice in mind. Eventually I won out, as the man always does in marriage, and we named our boy the name I wanted: Rumpledink Gaylord. I realized right away what a horrible mistake I made the first time the doctor announced his delivery. But by then the birth certificate was finalized and it cost a whole $10 to refile with the State; so, we just started calling little Rump by the name my wife had first asked for, “Jude.”
We did this so smoothly that it never escaped to our family his real government name. This is a big relief, as you can imagine. If such an embarrassing secret ever came out, I shudder to imagine the horrible, life-altering nicknames he would inevitably face. I mean, of course, besides “Mucus Lucas,” which, from recent interactions with my coworkers, I fear will stick around a while.
The whole experience taught my wife and me a valuable lesson on the importance of a child’s name. She’s learned not to stress these things so much, and never to trust me with big decisions again. I’ve learned that children’s names need at least a little consideration before signing any documents. It wasn’t the end of the disagreement between us, of course. When we came to the decision again for our second child, we went through a similar discussion about how much worry to give her name. I wanted a name from my German heritage, perhaps “Vellyshmitz.,” but my wife was cautious. We had some, er, mutual give and take, but eventually one of us—in some ways both of us!—was convinced to relent, and we introduced to the world our beautiful daughter: “Rose.” Though, I will point out, my wife was coming off anesthesia at the time. And I filled out the birth certificate.
