Drunk with Power

It’s a trip thinking about how much control I will soon have over another human’s life. For example, Andrea and I will choose the name another person will go by for the rest of his or her life. How crazy is that?

This ability to control another human being can be intoxicating. I can see why a person, upon realizing this nearly limitless power, might get carried away and give her children absurd “names” like Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper. But I’ve decided that naming my child is a privilege that tradition has bestowed upon me; I promise not to take it lightly.

Here are a few rules I’m going by:

• No made-up names. I just cannot justify torturing my child with the product of my very limited creativity. This includes names that have been made up by other people but have recently become popular.
• Nothing that’s too hard to pronounce. Unfortunately, since we’re not raising our kids on Iceland (dang), that means some kick-A Icelandic names like Úlfar (wolves), Þór (Thor), Björn (bear), Sigurrós (victory rose), and Brynhildur (armored warrior woman), are off the list. As awesome as those names are, I couldn’t put my American child through the countless mispronunciations and questions.
• Nothing that’s too popular right now. I just don’t want my kid to be one of 20 “Emmas” (or whatever) in her class.
• No classic names with whacked-out spellings à la Utah culture. ”Christopher” will not become “Krystuhfur,” and “Elizabeth” will not become “Illizuhbeth”

That’s it. Shouldn’t be too hard to get a name from those criteria, right?