Lionel and Joyce sat and joyfully discussed the name of their first-born. After taking account of the thoughts of friends and family, they made a short-list and after carefully deliberation eventually settled on Jeffrey for a boy. He was relentlessly teased in the playground because of this name, emotionally distroying him. Jeffrey grew up to be a very bad boy. Mr & Mrs Dalmer had chosen badly, indeed. OK, I'm guessing at some of the details, but it could well be that David Dalmer would have been a mild mannered vegan.
How does one go about assigning a label to an individual who you don't even know yet? I've heard that many Sikhs adopt the tradition of randomly turning the page of a book and choosing a name beginning with the first letter of the first word on the page. Chances are that we'd get Q and have to choose between Quentin and Qwerty and frankly I'm not sure which would lead to more teasing (but speed-typing ones name could offer significant benefits).
Phonics are far more important than I originally would have thought. Firstly, does it rhyme or alliterate...so Wayne and Bobby are out. Then, does it sounds like it might be used by a serial killer, genocidal world leader or reality TV star in the next eighty years. And finally, how does it roll off the tongue when preceded by "Nobel prize winner..." or "I'll have Fries with that please..."
My elder brother was named Richard and I'm pretty sure that re-use of his initialled clothing was a factor in my naming. If it hadn't occurred to them that an R can be changed to a B, I'm pretty sure that my younger brother would have been Ryan (rather than Brian) and we'd have been on the way to being an invasion band - Ricky, Robbie, Ryan and the Basinheads.
None of this gets us very far towards actually choosing a name, though. We're wandering towards the idea of naming our son after a favourite character from a book or history in the hope that he will emulate their feats or character. Is it too much pressure on an unborn child - that they will one day out-wit pheasants with the cunning use of sleeping pills and/or pull thorns from Lion's paws?
Any suggestions welcome.
Except Jeffrey.
No comments:
Post a Comment