In which I once again concentrate on my uterus

There will be a more normal post up later.

We have been throwing around names for a potential Pistolero, Jr for some seven months now, a task made to seem somewhat more urgent by the frequent braxton-hicks contractions and the fact that my ticker is well under 60 days.  Because the guy's last name is heavily ethnic--seriously, the most German name I've encountered around here outside of my own father's, which was Geissler--I'm trying to avoid anything that swings too hard in any direction, plus I have an allergy to very common names (and as you know, there are maybe 200 boys' names that don't suck, and so they're used again & again), and of course have three kids already so it has to go with the rest of them, and it can't be anything from the ex-husband's family or from the parts of my family I don't like, and besides my family has given its kids some funky freaking names in the past.  (No offense to my mom, but when my brother refuses to use his first name, I am not gonna give it to my own kid.  Elston can just die out.)

We might have one, but for a while I've been telling people "If it's a girl, her name will be Marie.  If it's a boy, his name will be Hey, You."  (And I'm not telling anyone the name, because I am pregnant and hormonal and will probably change my mind, but it comes from country music instead of guns, so there is that.  It was just a joke that we could call the kid Ruger.)*

Anyway, pregnant me is hanging around online with other pregnant chicks and observing the funky stuff they're planning on naming their kids.  My primary haunt, Mama Drama, seems to be staffed with some pretty savvy chicks.  The weirdest name there this past year or so has been Kroix, and I honestly like it.

Other places?  Yeah, it's like Mostly Cajun's name game (even though he'd shit kittens between me & Erik, 'cause I haven't bothered changing my name and this 'un will have three names just like the others).

It would be nice if we could put together a naming class for expectant parents.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are certain incontrovertible rules of baby naming you must acknowledge before you pick out something for your child:

1)  Sticking random letters into a common name does not make it unique.  It makes you look illiterate, or at best like you're desperately trying to be unusual, but you lack the brainpower.  Case in point: Leiah.  Realize, there is no way anyone will be able to a) spell that name or b) guess your preferred pronunciation.

2)  There are certain names that will make you look like a fifteen-year-old who couldn't figure out a condom.  When I was in high school, this name was Destiny.  "It was Destiny that I slept with the whole football team and came away with chlamydia and a daughter."  Journey seems to be the 21st century version.  Granted, at least Journey has the alternate interpretation that you're obsessed with an '80s hair band, but overall it's not gonna look good.

3) Some names were left in the past for a reason.  For some, it's because women finally started receiving education past the third grade and realized that certain things will make you sound like an ignorant hick.  Even if they're perfectly pretty names, they're just not a good idea for a woman who can do nifty stuff like vote.  Others have horrible associations because of famous people who bore them.  I suppose if your daughter is Sadie, though, you might as well name your son Adolph.

4) If an unusual name is important to you, there are ways to research it.  The Social Security Administration maintains a list of popular baby names.  Look at a name's rank.  Look at where it was five or ten years ago.  If it's at 300 and going up, you can essentially guarantee everyone else looking for an unusual name has had the exact same idea as you, and by the time your kid hits kindergarten, she will be surrounded by other little Savannahs and Emmas and Sophies.

5) Random nouns still aren't good names.  The children of hippies discovered this back in the '70s and '80s (hand to God, I went to kindergarten with a girl named Rainbow).  The children of Wiccans and certain confused Christians are discovering it now.  Genesis?  Great book of the Bible.  Shitty name for your child.  Odyssey?  No one thinks you read Homer; we think your child was conceived in your minivan.

6) Similarly, not all Biblical names are good ones.  I almost left this off, but then was reminded of one of my daughter's classmates last year.  Job.  At a quick glance, it still looks like work, and if anyone stops to think about it, they will think of the torment the Biblical Job endured as basically the object of a wager between God and the Devil, and they'll wonder how much you didn't want the child.  There's a reason we've all settled on a relatively short list of Biblical names.  Cross Obadiah off the list now, people.

7) Naming your kid according to anyone's rules is pretty fucking stupid.  Getting your panties in a twist because someone on the internet hates your kid's name is a sign you're not ready to be a parent.









* Still haven't figured out if it's good, bad, or indifferent that if we go with this name the kid's initials will be REPO.