obsession
A few weeks ago my mom and I were discussing the fact that my friend had just had a baby. Now, whenever I talk to my mom these days, I usually get the full scoop on which of my childhood friends are having babies and who’s trying and how cute they all are and though she tries (I know she tries!) to make it sound like she’s not whining about how all of her friends have grandchildren and she doesn’t, I know it’s there. And that’s fine. I try to just make a causal reference to how much I’m enjoying my whiskey and move on.
We’re at the age where our friends are having kids. It’s weird. It’s really cool. A lot of my friends are pregnant or recently had kids, and I’m thrilled for them. But I am so far from feeling capable of caring for a child that it’s a little scary. But what I love to do is think about what people name their babies. I mean, this won’t come as a surprise, considering we already have a whole category for baby names over there on the left. We've talked about this before here. As a sociological study, they’re fascinating. How they spill over into character names in books is even more fascinating, but I talked about that here. And ok, just a few weeks ago I talked about names that I have irrational hatred and love for. So maybe I am obsessed with names.
But this has been on my mind because of my friends. For the most part, I really love the names our friends have picked out (especially those who read this blog and so obviously have good taste). This particular friend named her baby something totally adorable, but I deemed it too trendy. Then I showed my mom the magic of baby name rankings. The Social Security website tracks baby names, and each year they update the list with the top ten for both boys and girls. You can also search for a particular name, search by state, or by year, or whatever. And while this friend’s baby wasn’t on the top ten, it was up there. And then we wasted a huge amount of time searching for all my friend’s baby’s names and finding out where they rank.
Now, as my mom oohed and aahed over how much she liked the top ten names, I tried to warn her that her first grandchild will probably be named something totally unpopular, like Fred, or Beulah. Actually, not Beulah. Our basset hound growing up was Beulah. But anyway, something so far from trendy that it would make people question our sanity.
But here's my question: is this a kind of reverse trendiness? Like, am I so obsessed with picking a name for my phantom child that's way uncool because I am determined to be cool? I can't decide if I should go for Emily after all. Is there such a thing as being too trendy? Is this legwarmers all over again?
By the way, I blame this entire post on the fact that I’m once again sick and drugged up on cold medicine. Also, it seems that our thermometer has decided it only takes temperatures in Celsius these days, which is driving me batty.
9 comments:
I still get the newspaper from my hometown (southeast, middle of nowhere, one wall-mart, two traffic lights). One of my favorite parts is seeing what people name their babies. This week's baby name du jour was Paisley, who has a big brother named Chesney (thus, both children are a tribute to country singers ... just in case there's no country music in NYC ...). People also write birth announcements like the baby is the one writing: "Hi, my name is Chesney ...". Is that normal? It seems a little strange to me but, then again, for years I thought babies came out of a cabbage patch.
If you found the SSA website interesting, you'll probably like this map of popular baby names. It includes the SSA data but also has statistics from other countries. Some places publish every single name given in a year so even really rare names can be found on the map.
guy davis, that website is going to be ridiculously addictive.
I'm in the same boat you are, Anne. I am not planning on having babies, but I still can't help obsessing over what names I like, what I like but would never name my own child, etc.
Jane is plain, eh? Try being Sarah Jane. (As in, Sarah, Plain and Tall. Not that I was named after that book, but just as an example). There were always at least two Sarahs in my classes growing up and we had to revert to being Sarah V., Sarah D., and Sara S. (which doesn't really help in my case cause V and D sound very similar, so I would still never know who the teacher was calling).
I'm writing right now and I hate trying to name my characters cause I'm afraid to fall in the "popular" trap. But there's always find and replace if I hate the names in the end. :)
You know what's weird? I don't have a single friend who is pregnant or even trying to get pregnant.
And I am OLDER than Anne. In fact, I'm getting married before my boss.
I guess people marry a lot later out here in California. Also Natalie, lately I want to just call you up and chat for a while about small-town life. You are a scream.
I work in a school so I see LOTS of names that I'm sure were attempts at uniqueness. The most notable of which are Cha'Paris, R'rielle, G'Rina, etc... Then there are the interchangeable names like McKenna Hanna - Hanna McKenna - which is which? And is it a boy or a girl? It makes it very difficult for alphabetizing...
...not that I'm going to be having a baby anytime soon, but reading this post made me think of what a big job it is to name your child. You want the name to be unique, or have a special meaning or something. At the same time, you don't want to give them a name so unique that they get made fun of in school. :)
Scooby, maybe YOU don't want to have your kid made fun of in school. I plan on making sure poor little Beulah never has any friends.
And May, I don't think people get married any later in San Francisco than they do in New York. I was engaged at the same time as my boss, remember? I just have a lot of friends who are a few years older than I am at church.
Here's one that covers contemporary baby naming Baby Names Hold
- who knows where the new trends will lead. Baby Jaguar, L'Oreal, Hunter... in the end it's all a matter of personal opinion.
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