Picking a unique baby boy name - what is and isn't cool.
If it's all in a name - what do you call that new baby boy?
Baby boy names were straightforward once upon a time. If you wanted variety you contracted the main name as in Stan (from Stanley), Bert (from Albert) and Sid (from Sidney). One shudders to imagine the shocked face on the vicar in those days if the chosen boy name was novel or confusing. Simplicity was everything - you had your name and it was up to you what you made of it.
Nowadays we have couples (as in the family in New Zealand) trying to choose Superman or 4Real as their preferred Baby Boy Names. What has gone wrong? Even when I was a boy, a name which was removed from the usual would be lampooned by the other boys and would definitely be a handicap for the child concerned.
But where can we go with baby boy names to be original? What is the next stop in the madness? We've now started using numbers like passwords so what about 2late or, perhaps worse still, 2soon? What do you tell the younger sibling of '1andonly'? They are going to start off life with one awful complex!
If we are going to follow the other trend of using celebrity names, may I suggest 'the man with no name'? If it's wrong to name your child Adolf Hitler (as it has been ruled) then why should the names of terrorists also not be included on a banned list. What about the names of mass murderers, serial killers etc - should they not be banned as baby boy names too?
There could be a funny side to baby boy names. How I would have enjoyed our housemaster reading out the names on the register if one of the boys had been called 'Imatwit' or 'Kickmelater'. No arguing there.
The problem is that the name your child is given has a direct bearing on how he is perceived by others - wrong as that may be. When you pick from a list of baby boy names you are taking on a great responsibility for the child concerned. Short, butch, traditional names will be seen as endowing masculinity on the boy whereas long, strange or made-up names will be perceived as being effeminate. This does not matter for a young child but can cause serious difficulties later in life - particularly in adolescence and early manhood. Teasing and other peer problems can become unbearable.
This may not be a problem for the rich and famous who can ensure that their quirkiness in their name selection does not have an adverse effect on their children but for the rest of us no such insurance exists and our decisions in this respect will probably last beyond our own lifetime.
So, what will you call your child - which name will you pick from the list of baby boy names?
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