Dear #,
At the time of writing, I'm the proud father of two adorable little boys, your future husband and brother in law. We named them fairly traditionally, one from a dream and the other from rational considerations and an abnormal obsession with obscure presidents. We consider name selection to be a grave responsibility, and we took it more seriously than color choices, diaper brand, or stroller selection. Well, maybe not stroller choice, that's as critical as religion, schooling, or what age is best to take the boys to Disney World.
We've discovered, though, that not everyone takes naming as seriously as we do, and the parents of girls are particularly lazy about their choices. Strange spellings, unusual choices and extreme gender stealing have all become the norm with girl's names.
To be honest, I wasn't that worried about it. We have boys, and if we are blessed enough to have a girl in the future, she'll get a good, well considered name. And then my lovely wife pointed out a critical fact: unless my boys are both gay, someone with one of these crazy names will be my son's wife.
These girls will be involved in the naming of my grandchildren.
So I'm writing to you, #. Please take the responsibility of naming your children seriously.
Love,
"Dad"
As one of those girls named a misspelled boy's name... I can say sometimes that actually teaches us the lesson to name our daughters well. I never had a nickname and people always thought I was a boy... so I named my girls Rebekah and Charlotte. Solid, classic, feminine names.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping you don't have any Laceys or Syerrahs in your future :)
I got a little confused at the end, (wouldn't that mean naming your children seriously?) but I know what you mean, as I also carefully chose each of your names. However, I know girls with names chosen just as carefully, like Helen (after her grandmother) and I had some neat girls' names in mind. I just never got to use them. If I'd had another boy, he would have been Eric, and then you would have had a brother with a C ending like yours.
ReplyDeleteMy own names are just because your grandmother liked them, but they also happen to be the names of famous actress/singers of their day.
My cousin's daughters, two of whom I met this weekend, all have Bible names, Rebecca, Sarah, and......
Bethany Rachel. (she got two)
Toni- I'm actually planning on doing a post all about using boys names for girls, so keep your eyes open. Also, Rebekah and Charlotte are great names!
ReplyDeleteMom- I fixed the end. I also think there's some generational stuff going on here - I think on the whole your generation went the other direction, using a lot of really common names, so there are a million Ashleys and Megans. Our generation has revolted from that, but now are going overboard with "Originality."