What's in a name? Yeah, I know the whole rose and smelling sweeter and all that is usually spewed after that particular question. I was a Lit Major in my humble college career. But seriously, what's in a name? Why is it certain names are only associated with one gender, or one religion, or one race? Why is it that we like the way certain names flow or sound versus another? How come everyone decides to name their kids the same name and then we end up having 4 kids in one 1st grade class with the same first name?
We took Kyan to the playground today and there was a man there watching one of his sons practice baseball and the other was on the swings. Jared started idle chit chat with him and then of course Kyan had to come check out what was going on and we get the same old "How old is he? What's your name little guy!" followed by "He's big/small/tall/short/talkative/shy.... for his age!" which apparently is what you're supposed to do. You can't just say, "How cute." anymore, you have to form an opinion.
So the guy, nice guy and all, asks him his name and Jared says, "Kyan" and he says "Oh that's cute. My little guy's name is Kaeden. That's kinda close!" Immediately I get a bit depressed because I hadn't heard any kids around here with that name. I've heard Cade, Cadence, Kayson, and a shit load of Aydens, but not Kaeden and my heart hit the floor. All I could think of is "That name is supposed to be Kyan's little brother's (should he ever have one) name! I don't want it to get popular! I wonder how popular it is!" And really that's not fair. It's not like I see kids popping up at Walmart with name tags that say "Hi. My name is..." on them. It just bothers me because, as a former teacher and kid who had a million girls in their class with the same name so she was known as Stephanie J. her whole K-4 career and back to 'Which Stephanie are you?' from 9-12, I didn't want to have kids who had really common names. Kyan was a safeguarded name that only my family knew definately about. I didn't feel like sharing it with all the women in my OBGYN office, or random strangers who did (or didn't) say they had a friend or relative also expecting. It may be selfish, but I just wanted a child with a unique name or an uncommon not on the Top 10 of 2006 list. We went on a mini-vacation last week to Charleston and growing up around here there aren't as many different ethnic groups as there are in larger cities or even just further south in location. I'm at a Gymboree store and this lady and her mother are sorting through clothes and our sons are sitting stroller to stroller babbling to one another. It's sad, but I'm not really sure that Kyan has ever seen a black child before that close or to actually interact. We just live in a very rural area so he doesn't see many children anyways unless I seek out a Mom's Club, Mommy and Me, whatever. Anyhow, she asks how old, his name, and I tell her and she and her mother go on and on about how much they really like that name. I thank her and ask about her son as well. She goes into this explaination saying, "Well, I just don't really like those stereotypical black names like Shaneiqua and all that so I named him Jason David." I came back to the hotel and started telling Jared about our day and how Kyan had met another baby around his age and then told him the story and it just kind of dawned on me that we just accept that certain races or religions are going to name their children in "that" way. Not to sound like a racist ass, but more Christian families are going to go for biblical names, a person that has a French heritage might go for a more French origin name, etc. I don't know why but you sometimes look at a person and think they're going to tell you their child's name and it's going to be flamboyant or fancy and exotic and then tell tell you something really common or Americanized and you get a let down. It's just not fair. So I guess from now on I'm not going to let it bother me if I hear another child being called a name I've picked out for my unborn offspring, or hesitate to give my child's name in fear that I'll start seeing a rash of children in the newspaper with the same name, I won't even cringe at the next mispronunciation of it. I suppose that all that matters is a person likes their name, and are proud that they had parents who put thought into it and gave them a good name that they can be proud of. |
I've got a really big name thing too. I hate knicknames and popular names and went to great lengths to avoid them with my son. Lil pill's name is pronounced with a long "a" instead of a short "a" and every.single.person gets it wrong. I decided a long time ago that I'd just name my next kid the name I wanted, whether she was Emily x10 or whatever.