Nephews, Nieces and Naming Conventions
Recently, my sister-in-law had a baby girl. Before my brother and his wife knew the gender of their child, they proposed naming their offspring “Titan Prometheus.” This drove my father to apoplexy. In his mind, normal people would never conceive of assaulting their child with such a name.
When he discovered his unborn child was a girl, my brother chose a pretty but pedestrian name: “Emma Rain.” Perhaps he felt audacious names were only suited to boys. Or maybe it was just happenstance.
Either way, this whole episode has caused me to ponder the fascinating and sometimes bizarre realm of naming conventions.
Why, for example, is there no plural for nephews and nieces? I propose the term “nephsies” (‘nephsies, precious, nephsies’).
And why do parents give their children inscrutable names?
For example, a father purposely chose to name one son “Winner” and the other “Loser.” Curiously, Loser became a successful detective while Winner went to prison (an interesting sociology experiment to be sure, but a questionable parenting technique).
Another parent chose to name his child “Like,” after the Facebook like button (no, really).
And this is to say nothing of urban naming practices. It’s one thing to name your child “Yolanda.” It’s an entirely different matter when you condemn your child to respond to “Beezow Doo-doo Zopittybop-bop-bop” (although in this case, the name was self-inflicted; he had his former designation, “Jeffrey Drew Wilschke,” legally changed to the above).
Still, examples of ridiculous names abound: “Leodegrance,” “Avonmora,” “Sha Nay Nay,” “Shabooboo,” etc. etc (no, fortunately “etc. etc.” is not a baby name — at least, not to my knowledge).
As spell check is my witness, there’s something strange about these names.
But even beyond the practice of designating one’s children with unusual titles, I find the use of names in conversation to be strange.
For example, when there are only two people in the room, why do the participants in a conversation resort to specifying to whom they are speaking (‘Oh Romeo! Oh Juliet!’)?
Why, when context and subject matter clearly imply a targeted recipient (i.e. the person to whom one is speaking), does a person preface a comment with a name (‘Jack, I really enjoyed our recitation of The Bhagavad Gita’)?
The whole notion of employing names when not absolutely necessary seems an exercise in redundancy. Why not simplify things by employing the “Stephen Technique” (patent pending): stare at a person to whom you wish to communicate until they stare back, and then transmit data.
An additional aid in communicative efficiency is to omit from one’s mind all names other than those whose use will be prolonged (say, three months, minimum).
Strangely, my family has qualms with my verbal innovations.
In light of these verbal practices — that is, in light of their unfortunate status as being a breach of social protocol — maybe naming your child “Duckie” is OK.