Proper names are poetry in the raw, said the bard W.H. Auden.
"Like all poetry, they are untranslatable." Mapping your name
onto yourself is a tricky procedure indeed. We exist wholly independently
of our names, yet they alone represent us on our birth certificates and
gravestones.
Would a Rose by any other name be just as sweet-tempered? Does
Orion feel cosmically special? Psychologists, parents and the
world's Oceans, Zanes and Timothys are divided on the extent to
which first names actually matter.
You named him what? Today's parents seem to believe they can
alter their child's destiny by picking the perfect—preferably
idiosyncratic—name. (Destiny, incidentally, was the ninth most
popular name for girls in New York City last year.) The current crop of
preschoolers includes a few Uniques, with uncommonly named playmates like
Kyston, Payton and Sawyer. From Dakota to Heaven, Integrity to Serenity,
more babies are being named after places and states of mind. Names with
alternative spellings are on the upswing, like Jaxon, Kassidy, Mikayla,
Jazmine and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backward), as are mix-and-match names
such as Ashlynn and Rylan. "For the first time in history, the top
50 names account for less than 50 percent of boys born each year, and for
less than 40 percent of girls," says Cleveland Kent Evans,
professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska and author of
Unusual & Most Popular Baby Names. Evans believes that our
homogeneous strip-mall culture fosters the desire to nominally
distinguish our children. He cites a boom in unique names dating to the
late 1980s but says the taste for obscure monikers developed in the
1960s, when parents felt less obligated to keep certain names in the
family.
"It's really hard to name a kid," says Jill Bass who is
expecting her second child this winter. "It reflects what kind of person
you are." She and her husband, Carl Vogel are struggling to find a
name that is unique but not too trendy. "We don't want to go the Jake,
Zak and Tyler route," says Bass. "It will sound like one of those
year-2000 names. We don't want to sound as though we were trying so
hard."
Distinguishing a child in just the right way is the first task
parents feel charged with. Accordingly, parents-to-be increasingly track
the popularity of names on the Social Security Administration's Web site
and canvas the cottage industry of baby-name books. About 50 such books
were published between 1990 and 1996. Since 1997, more than 100 new books
have been published.
New parents rattle off diminutives and acronyms as if reciting
scales. "I wanted a truly awesome, convertible name that could collapse
into a normal name. Something like Charles Henry Underhill Grisham
Sernovitz, because CHUGS would be a great college nickname," says Andy
Sernovitz, father of Charles Darwin Grisham Sernovitz. Darwin was a nod to mom Julie Grisham's science-writing
vocation.
Today, children are christened in honor of sports teams, political
parties, vacation spots and food cravings. Adam Orr, a die-hard Cubs fan,
wanted to name his first child Clark Addison or Addison Clark, the names
of the streets that form the intersection at Chicago's Wrigley Field.
Alas, he and his wife, Annisa, are expecting a daughter this spring.
Records of kids named Espn tell of parents with a more general love of
sports. Christie Brinkley reportedly named her youngest child Sailor as a
tribute to a favorite pastime. Jamie Oliver, the British culinary star,
christened his child Poppy Honey, not nearly so unfortunate a name as
that of a poor soul dubbed Gouda.
Increasingly, children are also named for prized possessions. In
2000, birth certificates revealed that there were 298 Armanis, 269
Chanels, 49 Canons, 6 Timberlands, 5 Jaguars and 353 girls named Lexus in
the U.S. The trend is not surprising: In an era in which children are
viewed as accessories, such names telegraph our desire for creative,
social or material success. It would be ironic if young Jaguar or Lexus
grew up to drive a Honda Accord.
While a name may be a palimpsest for parental aspirations (hence
the concerns of savvy parents that they not appear to be striving too
hard), a name also reflects high hopes for the child himself. Choosing an
uncommon name is perceived as an opportunity to give your child a leg up
in life, signaling to the world that he or she is different. In Snobbery,
cultural critic Joseph Epstein argues that a child named Luc or Catesby
seems poised for greater achievements than selling car insurance.
Am I really a Jordan?
The announcements are in the mail; a religious ceremony may seal
the decision. The name is chosen, and it is a word that will become so
familiar that the child's brain will pull it out of white noise. It is
the first word she will learn to write. But what are the consequences of
a particular name for self-image?
They're not earth-shattering, according to a study by psychologist
Martin Ford, an assistant dean at George Mason University in Virginia.
Ford found no correlation between the popularity or social desirability
of a given name and academic or social achievement. "This doesn't mean
that a name would never have any effect on a child's development," he
explains. "But it does suggest that the probability of a positive effect
is as large as that of a negative effect. It also suggests that a name is
unlikely to be a significant factor in most children's
development."
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