By Steve Van Nattan
A few thoughts about naming children.
Many stories can be told about kids who were named oddly by their parents. One couple decided to let an uncle name their new twins. The uncle was a bit strange, but they thought he ought to have a turn. Well, when the uncle saw the girl of the twins, he said, "This one is Denise." The parents were relieved, "He's doing real well," said the father. Then they showed the uncle the boy of the twins. "This one is da nephew," he said. So much for my joke collection.
There are some true stories which are sad or even wicked. How about the family who couldn't read. They looked at the hospital form filled out by the nurses, and they saw that the nurses had already named the baby girl, "Female." They gave her that name, not knowing what it meant.
How about the girl in 5th grade when I was substitute teaching? She had been given an African name by her uncle. I thought I recognized it as I was taking roll. I told her I knew Swahili and that I would look the word up when I got home. It was a very filthy word, but it had a second obscure meaning-- "Face to face." You can figure that one out I suppose. I told her the obscure meaning the next day when she asked. I would have liked to wash the uncle's mouth out with soap.
Then there were the Hoggs. They had a baby girl, and named her "Ima." There were the Blues in California. They named their son, "Royal." That's not so bad really, but what will the boy think about his peculiar name many years later?
The worst cases are where parents want a girl or boy and get the opposite, so they name the child a name genderized for the child they wanted. Like using Georgianne because they wanted a boy. That stinks. That says to the kid, when he is about 10, "You were not wanted. You messed up our plans. You let us down." The kid will very likely give you the gender you wanted if you try that. That girl could very well turn out to be a tom-boy at first and a lesbian later.
Marion could become a sodomite, and Shawn could become a lesbian, a substitute for Sean of Ireland.
One boy was born to the Rhodes family. They thought it would be cute to name him Cecil, after the White racist maniac from South Africa-- the mentor of the One Worlders and Bill Clinton. The sad end of the story is that the gentleman has adapted much of the personality of Cecil Rhodes.
Suggestion: Name your kids Bible names. They never go out of fashion, and they can give the child something to live up to. Only, be careful not to name them Dinah or Sampson or Ichabod.
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