NAMES, NAMES, NAMES

“And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)

In the Bible, names are very significant and important. Frankly, I’m hard pressed to think of any place in Scripture where a baby (or a geographic location) is given a name with no particular rhyme or reason for the choice. Names of people indicated their character and attributes. The name “Jesus” for instance was actually the name “Joshua” or more accurately “Yeshua”. It means “salvation” or “Jehovah is salvation”. Jesus is the SAVIOR of the world, hence the name is most appropriate. The name Adam comes from “Edom” or red earth. Adam was created from the “dust of the ground” or literally the “red earth of the ground” and hence, his name.

In modern American culture, there are fads and cycles of boys’ and girls’ names. Over the nine months that I’ve worked at VIP Answering Service, I’ve taken countless messages which require me to write down a caller’s name or a patient’s name. And, I’ve noticed a pattern which frankly troubles me. The names which Americans are giving their kids today, and which they’ve been giving their kids for the past twenty years or so, are just plain WEIRD. I know that may sound harsh, but hear me out!

When I take a call from a nursing home about the medical condition of some person in their 80s or 90s, you can pretty well figure the person’s name will be George or Anne or Thomas or Emily or Andrew or Elizabeth. If it’s a call about a baby boomer, the name will be Carol or John or Richard or Marilyn or Peter or Susan or Frank. But, take a call for somebody born since 2000, and you’re going to be typing a name such as Kaetlynn or Tthhoommess or Jaycen or Reighleigh-Ann or Heaven (no kidding) or Messiah (no kidding) or Pink or Noelcarter or Aandersenn or Wetwalk or Noahark or E-lie-juh or Jobsfriend or Steffanieluv.

We do answer for a lot of callers from the African-American community as well as from the Hispanic community and the Indian (Asian) community. Typically kids from these communities DO tend to have some unusual names. But honestly, I’m finding the names of kids from mostly white affluent suburbs are no more or less unusual than are the names from those minority communities. Most of the sampling of names I have listed above represent children from white suburban communities.

I remember that back in 1961 when I brought home my black and white five by seven first grade class group photo, my mom got really frustrated as she wrote kids’ names on the back.

“Who is this boy?” she’d ask. and I’d answer “T.J.”

“Who is this girl?” and I’d say, “Rainey”.

Mom was puzzled. Well, “T.J.” stood for “Thomas J. Breheney” and “Rainey” was “Lorraine” but I didn’t know their full names in those days!
Even so, I can sort of relate to my mom’s dilemma of fifty years ago. I really feel sorry for the first grade teachers of today. Many times, they’ll be little construction papers of the students’ names displayed on a bulletin board. How would a teacher feel trying to learn to say and spell Jaycen or Reighleigh-Ann or Heaven or Messiah or Noelcarter or Aandersenn or Wetwalk or Noahark or E-lie-juh or Jobsfriend or Steffanieluv?

There’s a HUGE trend toward giving girls masculine names and boys feminine names. HUGE. I’m COMMONLY asked when I call triage for a certain medical practice and rattle off the kids name, “Is this a boy or a girl?” If I say, “You know, I’m not sure,” they’ll say, “make sure you ask”.

Just this week I got a call about a Karen with a weird spelling...it sounded like Karen but it was something like Kahorenn. When I asked the mom,
”what are her symptoms?” she QUICKLY corrected me to say this was a boy. And, you’ll commonly get Tyler or Charles or Dylan who turn out to be a GIRL. I’ve had to bite my tongue SO many times with callers. I really WANT to say, “You gave your kid THAT name...WHAT were you THINKING??!!”

I’d say about one in fifteen kids has a “normal” name, or what would have been a normal kids name when I was a child. I’ve also had to hold my tongue, because I really wanted to say to the parent, “THANK YOU for giving your child a name they won’t have to feel uncomfortable about.”

My father’s birth name was Eugene Armand Baril. “Armand” is a very common French-Canadian man’s name. I’m not sure why his parents chose “Eugene” for the first name. Dad really didn’t like his name all that much. He went by “Gene Baril” but was uncomfortable because it sounded like “Jean”- a girl’s name. Dad was determined that his kids not have names like that. At the time I was born, my father was a Boston Police officer. He was good friends with a fellow cop at the precinct there on Hyde Park Ave whose name was Bob O’Toole. That sounded very masculine. So Dad named me “Robert”. That’s where my name comes from. When my brother Eddie was born, Dad was just newly on the Registry of Motor Vehicles force. He commonly worked road enforcement with Eddie Ford, so he named his next son “Edward”. Dad’s favorite girl’s name was Diane and my mother’s was Anne. Thus when my sister was born she was named Dianne. Admittedly, Dianne is somewhat of a nontraditional spelling...especially for fifty years ago. Some of the family thought the spelling was kind of strange, but they gave her “Marie” as the middle name...the name of my Dad’s mother, so that made the relatives happy.

My daughter Amy is having her first child (and our first grandchild) in just three months or so. I want to stay out of the naming process, and I’ll love the child dearly no matter what name she picks out. But (admittedly) I hope she and her husband don’t choose one of those weird new baby names!