A Child by any other name...

I never knew it, but one of the hardest things to decide was what to name our children. The name sticks for the rest of their lives, so we took care to do the best for them we could. We chose fairly traditional names, but many choose to choose other types. I would group names in the following categories:

1. Traditional - These are biblical names or older names, like David, Jonathan, Elizabeth.


2. "Trendy" names - As a pediatrician, you see these waves of certain names come across. For a while it was Courtney, or Ashley. After that, the trend became naming girls with traditionally boy's names (Taylor, Michael)


3. Family names - Naming kids after parents or other family memebers. This is very common in the south. I actually never knew before getting here that many of the common nicknames were based on the "Number" after the name. For instance: Deuce, or Junior are for John Smith, Jr. Trey or Tripp for III. Corder for IV - that is one I had not heard much about.


4. Weird names - For some reason, people feel there are names that are "fun" to name their kids. I am not sure why they would do this, but they seem to put their desires ahead of what would be best for the child. A good example is as follows:

Sports fan names newborn son ESPN

Sat Oct 7, 9:16 AM ET
Leann Real promised her husband, an avid sports fan, that if they ever had a son he'd get to pick the name. ESPN Montana Real was born this week at Biloxi Regional Medical Center.

Rusty Real, of D'Iberville, chose ESPN (pronounced Espen) after the sports network and Montana after football legend Joe Montana.

Baby ESPN isn't alone.

Three others were cited in a 2005 report on tivocommunity.com about the network's 25th anniversary. They are Espn Malachi McCall in Pampa, Texas; Espn Curiel in Corpus Christi, Texas; and Espn Blondeel in Michigan.

"We were the talk of the hospital," Rusty Real said. "The nurses kept asking my wife if she was really going to let her husband name him ESPN. She said, 'Oh, yes.'"

What are they going to name their other kids, Food Network? Spice? Golf Channel? This really falls into the "get a life" category. I am well aware that there are a lot of kids down south named after Nascar Drivers (I had one kid named "Chase" after the Nascar Chase for the cup).

Some mythical names are infamous in the pediatric comminity that I am aware of are:

1. Orangejello and Lemonjello - accent is on the 2nd syllable.
   


2. Neisseria - Named after the bacteria that causes gonorrhea


3. Aquanet - Named for hairspray


4. Female - the myth goes "dad saw it on the band on the child's arm, and thought it was the name." Again, accent on 2nd syllable


5. I heard about a family with the last name of "Updegrave" and they named their kids Doug, Phill, and a few others I can't remember

A website with more names can be found here.
OK - now I want to hear some more stories in this way.