By any other name would smell as sweet."
That may have been true in the bard’s day, but today we place a great deal of stock in a person’s name. Names convey meaning, the memory of a loved one who has passed, or the aspirations of hopeful new parents. They can be tied to ones heritage or religion or family - or even taken from the names of beloved characters in books or even popular culture (Baby Snooki, anyone?).
And yes, names are even the fodder for childhood humor, the basis of evil limericks or hateful chants in the locker room showers (not that I know anything about that....). There’s that old joke about two young parents-to-be paging through a baby name book, trying to identify names for their little one that don’t invoke playground humiliation. Let’s listen in on just such a conversation...
Henpecked Husband (HH): “I think we should name the baby Patty.”
Underappreciated Wife (UW): “I knew a girl named Patty. They called her Fatty Patty. Fatty Patty two by four, can’t fit through the kitchen door. Do you want that for your child?”
HH: “Of course not. What about Mary?”
UW: “No way! Mary, rhymes with hairy. They’ll call her Hairy Mary. And she’ll already have a unibrow thanks to your side of the family. Isn’t that torture enough?”
HH: “So what about Lenore?”
UW: “Lenore? Seriously? Lenore! You want them to call her a stinking whore? What kind of father are you?
HH: “But I didn’t mean....”
UW: “That’s it, I want a divorce!”
And thus another broken home is made. You see, picking a name is a high stakes process with a host of awful, unintended consequences.
Apologies to any readers named Patty, Mary or Lenore and the years of torture you undoubtedly endured on the playground.
Fortunately Peter and I didn’t have to get a divorce to choose a name for Peanut. My family has a tradition of naming children after deceased relatives, so we agreed to name the baby using the initials of our grandmothers. Since Peter is French, we also wanted to choose a name that would be easy to pronounce in both English and French, unlike my name which is regularly mangled by Peter’s family. We didn’t know the gender of the baby that would be placed with us, so we decided to select a boy name and a girl name. Sure, we had several heated conversations, but we finally settled on two names we liked, and when we were placed with a girl, the decision was made for us (Peter is still holding on to the boys name in the event that we can use it for our next child).
As for nicknames, we call Peanut shortened versions of her given name. But the nickname that we use the most is “poopsie”. I am pretty sure my brother had a doll named Poopsie when he was a kid (it is very enlightened parents that would give their firstborn son a doll to play with, in the 1970’s no less!), but I also remember hearing my sister-in-law refer to her kids as “poopsie face”. The word is just so cute! I’ve been using it ever since we brought Peanut home. Sure, it causes people to stare, but so does the sight of two grown men with an African American baby. Welcome to my life.
Of course, we haven’t stuck strictly with poopsie, and her nickname has slowly evolved (or should I say, devolved) into other words or phrases with the root word “poop”, including poopsie la la, diet poopsie, poopsicle, poops, pooperoni and pooper. Now that her language skills are developing at a rather rapid pace, we really need to identify a new nickname. Just today, as I picked her up after her nap, she announced, “I poop”, a fact I had actually discovered when I opened the door to her room and the smell hit me in the face. So clearly she knows that poop is ALSO something that can be found in her diaper). And yet, the moniker poop has a certain stickiness factor, and we just can’t get it off hands.
As far as horrible nicknames, there must be something worse than poop, right? After all, it could be stinking whore.
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
That may have been true in the bard’s day, but today we place a great deal of stock in a person’s name. Names convey meaning, the memory of a loved one who has passed, or the aspirations of hopeful new parents. They can be tied to ones heritage or religion or family - or even taken from the names of beloved characters in books or even popular culture (Baby Snooki, anyone?).
And yes, names are even the fodder for childhood humor, the basis of evil limericks or hateful chants in the locker room showers (not that I know anything about that....). There’s that old joke about two young parents-to-be paging through a baby name book, trying to identify names for their little one that don’t invoke playground humiliation. Let’s listen in on just such a conversation...
Henpecked Husband (HH): “I think we should name the baby Patty.”
Underappreciated Wife (UW): “I knew a girl named Patty. They called her Fatty Patty. Fatty Patty two by four, can’t fit through the kitchen door. Do you want that for your child?”
HH: “Of course not. What about Mary?”
UW: “No way! Mary, rhymes with hairy. They’ll call her Hairy Mary. And she’ll already have a unibrow thanks to your side of the family. Isn’t that torture enough?”
HH: “So what about Lenore?”
UW: “Lenore? Seriously? Lenore! You want them to call her a stinking whore? What kind of father are you?
HH: “But I didn’t mean....”
UW: “That’s it, I want a divorce!”
And thus another broken home is made. You see, picking a name is a high stakes process with a host of awful, unintended consequences.
Apologies to any readers named Patty, Mary or Lenore and the years of torture you undoubtedly endured on the playground.
Fortunately Peter and I didn’t have to get a divorce to choose a name for Peanut. My family has a tradition of naming children after deceased relatives, so we agreed to name the baby using the initials of our grandmothers. Since Peter is French, we also wanted to choose a name that would be easy to pronounce in both English and French, unlike my name which is regularly mangled by Peter’s family. We didn’t know the gender of the baby that would be placed with us, so we decided to select a boy name and a girl name. Sure, we had several heated conversations, but we finally settled on two names we liked, and when we were placed with a girl, the decision was made for us (Peter is still holding on to the boys name in the event that we can use it for our next child).
As for nicknames, we call Peanut shortened versions of her given name. But the nickname that we use the most is “poopsie”. I am pretty sure my brother had a doll named Poopsie when he was a kid (it is very enlightened parents that would give their firstborn son a doll to play with, in the 1970’s no less!), but I also remember hearing my sister-in-law refer to her kids as “poopsie face”. The word is just so cute! I’ve been using it ever since we brought Peanut home. Sure, it causes people to stare, but so does the sight of two grown men with an African American baby. Welcome to my life.
Of course, we haven’t stuck strictly with poopsie, and her nickname has slowly evolved (or should I say, devolved) into other words or phrases with the root word “poop”, including poopsie la la, diet poopsie, poopsicle, poops, pooperoni and pooper. Now that her language skills are developing at a rather rapid pace, we really need to identify a new nickname. Just today, as I picked her up after her nap, she announced, “I poop”, a fact I had actually discovered when I opened the door to her room and the smell hit me in the face. So clearly she knows that poop is ALSO something that can be found in her diaper). And yet, the moniker poop has a certain stickiness factor, and we just can’t get it off hands.
As far as horrible nicknames, there must be something worse than poop, right? After all, it could be stinking whore.
Our baby at 22 months is still called pizza -- my husband said to our eldest, if I call you the boy, and your sister the girl, what will we call the new baby --- He answered Pizza --- and so pizza it has been: or pitz or pitzi She starts preschool tomorrow and the teachers actually asked us what to call her --- much to grandma's dismay -- well, she answers the most to pizza!!! Just more fodder for therapy later in life!!!!
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