As the world waits breathlessly for the royal baby to be born,
this week I read that many women in the UK right now are holding off naming
their child because they’re waiting to hear what Kate and William will be
naming theirs. Apparently, over there,
you have 6 weeks to name your child after birth and Kate is due any time now so
they’re waiting to name their baby the same.
Seems kind of ridiculous to some of us over here maybe, but
then again, we have celebrities recently naming their kids things like North
and Blue Ivy… And, we have other people naming their kids after favorite celebrities
too.
People come up with all kinds of clever and unique names.
There are always the traditionalists who go for the family names or a mashup of
two family members; my high school friend’s name was Joneva, a combination of
her Mom and Dad’s name, John and Eva. You could always use a familiar name and
just spell it differently.
Some name their kids after movie heroes, book characters or
Disney characters. Some stick with biblical names or name every child starting
with the same letter of the alphabet. Then there are the holiday names for a
child born in December, Noel or Holly.
Then you get to the more unusual names. I worked with a lady
years ago named Sundae Sweet. You’ve heard of people having the same first and
last names…Chris Chris? Then there was the famous Texas daughter named Ima
Hogg. Her daddy was the Attorney General and the Governor of Texas back in the early
1890’s.
Recently, there was the controversy over the parents in
Jersey that named their children after prominent Nazi historical figures
including Hitler. (read
this story here).
Every year the Social Security Administration puts out a
list of the most popular baby names for the previous year. You can even find
baby naming apps on line.
The bottom line is, people since the dawn of man have tried
to give their children a sense of identity in choosing their names. We all want
our boys to have a strong name and our girls a pretty name. All parents want to
give their child everything and put their dreams and wishes into their
beautiful new, sweet baby and his/her future. We choose names that make the
family happy, us happy and hopefully our child happy. Naming your child is
truly an art born of inspiration and love.
So, what’s in a name?....oh, just….everything!
