YO MAMA: Remember the fun, yet terrifying, responsibility of naming your child?
Daydreaming about what to name my baby had to be the single most time-wasting hobby of my pregnancy. It was so much more fun than picking out baby monitors. And unlike most other preparations, it was free. Depending on my mood, I would flip back and forth between edgy, unique names...
Valandos
Daydreaming about what to name my baby had to be the single most time-wasting hobby of my pregnancy. It was so much more fun than picking out baby monitors. And unlike most other preparations, it was free.
Depending on my mood, I would flip back and forth between edgy, unique names like Cedar to classic names like Nathaniel.
“We love cooking,” I said to my husband one day. “Maybe we should name him after a favourite spice?”
We tossed around Basil, Clove and Fennel (Fenn for short) before I pointed out the potential perils of picky eating and the possibility that our son would detest the flavour of his given name. (That argument also kiboshed Kale.)
We both loved the outdoors, perhaps something that gave a nod to the natural world? Forrest, Hunter, and Wilder were obvious choices, but we quickly went down the rabbit hole of more obscure names like Obsidian (“Sid”), Alder, and Leaf.d
“What about Root?” I suggested, suppressing a laugh. “He’d probably be really grounded.”
Brainstorming names was a goofy, fun and easy distraction from the impending labour and delivery.
I went online once and found myself following a long and meandering trail of articles with titles such as “Fruit Baby Names”, “Antique Baby Names” and “Boy Names Kids Consider Cool” (because outsourcing the decision to a bunch of 10-year-olds is an excellent idea). Another category called “word names” (which is exactly what it sounds like) included options like Danger, Whimsy, and Blue. The name game really was too much fun — until my ninth month came along and the tone turned serious.
My grandfather helped sober things up by mailing me a document entitled “Helston pedigree chart.” I sat up a little straighter as I unfolded the paper. (If you are thinking I am descended from a pack of dogs, please be informed that the term pedigree also refers to “the recorded ancestry, of a person or family.”) I’m still not sure if my grandpa was joking when he sent this, and I can’t ask him about it anymore because, sadly, he has since passed on.
I traced the lines of the family tree and found my dad, John. Above him, I found his dad (my grandpa) who was also named John. I’ve always thought it was funny (and a bit narcissistic) to name your son after yourself (grandpa got a kick out of it, he named his other son John too). Looking at our family tree, I now realized my dear grandad was simply keeping with tradition: his father’s name was also John, and his father before that. It was John all the way back to the medieval ages, or pretty close. Patronyms — names based on a father’s, grandfather’s or other male ancestor’s name — were pretty common centuries ago, but that trend started tapering off when my dad was still in diapers.
Nowadays, the goal is to name your child something no one else on the planet has ever been named before. If there is even one other child in your kid’s class that shares the same name, you’ve pretty much doomed your progeny to a life of humdrum commonality. (Be forewarned, Whimsy is already taken.)
There is also the added pressure of ensuring the name cannot be converted to tortuous nicknames, but as my husband said, “are we really going to let a bunch of schoolyard bullies affect the naming of our son?” We both agreed: a strong name is important. It contributes largely to first impressions and is as much a reflection of the kid as his parents (case in point: would you trust a kid named Danger?) It is tied to identity and individuality. It’s the first thing you give to your child.
According to the Internet, there are some 29,918,993 unique first names on Planet Earth (not to mention a million other English words that could potentially become avant-garde names.) How would we ever narrow it down, much less agree? Rather rebelliously, we began wondering what happens if you fail to name your child. Well, apparently there is a fine for that. In Canada, you have one month to register the legal name of your child, or risk a whopping $27 fine.
So, how did other people figure this out? My mom told me she obsessively scanned the credits after movies for inspiration. Her mother picked some family names and found others by serendipitous strokes of inspiration; she named my uncle Robin after a bird that visited her window. A friend of a friend named her son Ireland after the romantic vacation that led to his conception. Others named their kids after favourite authors, singers or even video game characters.
In the end, we wrote a top five list and put it away in a drawer. We pulled it out again after our son was born and, magically, there was only one name that was right: Rebel Moonbeam.
Just kidding, we named him Arthur.
— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.
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