Name That Baby!

“No, you’re not. You’re not going to call the baby … that!”

That was my mother’s overexcited, underwhelmed reaction to the news that we were going to name her third grandson …Fletcher.

“Stop kidding around,” she demanded. “What’s his real name going to be?”

Oy. You’d think we’d chosen something like Apple. Or Shiloh. Or Anakin, as, I kid you not, one mom in my Mommy & Me class did. Hey, I love Sex And The City, but I wasn’t naming my kid Big. Though it could have been worse. She could have named the unfortunate tot Vader. Or Darth.

When they’re not ridiculous — and I realize that ridiculousness is clearly in the eye of the beholder — I love unusual names. And really my mom ought to understand that. She was the one who named me “Norine,” not exactly an eyebrow raiser in Ireland, but hardly in everyday use in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood she grew up in in Brooklyn. Then she gave it a twist, spelling it N-O-R-I-N-E. And inadvertently gifted me with the dubious bonus of having to spell it out for just about everyone I encounter. I’ve gotten so used to saying, “No …it’s -i-n-e” when leaving messages, I’m shocked when someone does spell it correctly right off the bat. Even my grandmother couldn’t get it right (though whether that was deliberate or merely forgetful, I could never determine). But she went right on spelling my name the traditional Irish way as N-O-R-E-E-N until she could no longer write out birthday and Chanukah checks herself. I like to joke that the day I married Stewart McDaniel, I morphed, in a 30-minute ceremony, from an Eastern European Jew to an Irish lass.

My point is that it shouldn’t have come as a great surprise to anyone that when it was our turn to choose a name for our “speck” (what we initially dubbed the baby because a black speck was all we saw on our very first ultrasound — ecstatically taped to our fridge — that proved we were pregnant), well, we wanted something that was unlikely to be found on a personalized toothbrush or door plate. And I, in the way that many Jews idolize WASP culture (see Allen, Woody) wanted a strong, distinctive name that reflected Stewart’s British Isles heritage. Just so long as it didn’t have too many consonants. See, we’re both fans of The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way, Bill Bryson’s hilarious history of the English language (and the first gift Stewart ever gave me). That book introduced us to the Welshmen’s deep love of consonants and their penchant for arranging them in a way that, to steal a bit from Bryson, looks like Scrabble leftovers after a major play. Indeed, one of my favorite Bryson examples is the Welsh word for beer — cwrw — with nary a vowel in it, and improbably pronounced “koo-roo.” But a string of consonants like that is just going to drive the preschool teacher nuts. She’s not going to think it’s cute or cultural. She’s going to curse the day Lil’ Cwrw showed up on her class roster.

And so I wandered over to ScottishBabyNames.com where there’s a much better ratio of consonants to vowels … though cool-looking handles like Cearr, Seaghdha and Caimbeul still seemed to defy easy pronunciation. Much as I wanted an exotic name, I couldn’t give my only child some “It’s spelled l-u-x-u-r-y y-a-c-h-t , but pronounced throat-warbler mangrove” name that would be forever tripped over by everyone from his nursery school teacher forward.

Ergh! Why do soon-to-be parents go through such hair-pulling angst to find the perfect gem of a name? One that reflects their cultural background, worldview, coolness quotient, social position they hope to attain, etc.? Because names have incredible power to shape character and personality and could possibly give the wee one a leg up in the playground pecking order. Don’t think so? Consider the last Sidney you met who wasn’t an accountant with a bad comb-over. Or the last Wayne who wasn’t a complete asshole. Think about Billy Crystal waxing on in When Harry Met Sally about how “Sheldon” was the guy to take care of your taxes or do your root canal, but hardly the lothario who’ll curl your toes in bed. “It’s the name,” he tells Meg Ryan. “Do it to me, Shel-don. You’re an animal, Shel-don. Ride me Big Shel-don. It just doesn’t work.”

Meanwhile, the kids in my class named Harper and Dwyer, Hadley and Logan exuded infinite cool — and that was just in elementary school.

Still, while Stewart and I certainly felt entitled to play around, trying on names, then casting them off like bargain hunters at a Filene’s sale — that’s one of the perks that come with supplying the egg and the sperm and then schlepping around the aftermath for 10 months — it’s amazing who all else feels that they have buy-in on your baby name. And that would be basically everybody you’re foolish enough to share your choice with. It practically becomes a parlor game — Name That Baby! Unbidden, folks will freely weigh right in with a two thumbs up… or unload about how you’re making a terrible choice because that’s the name of that snobby girl who was mean to them in first grade.

My pal Amy, soon due with her first is considering the name Arax, which, even though I wasn’t consulted, certainly has my vote for Awesome Baby Name. That’s because it reflects Amy’s background (Armenian), there’s a family connection (it was her grandmother’s) and unlike the legions of Marys, Lisas, Staceys and Jennifers, there ain’t no one else in her class who’s gonna be called Arax. In my totally unsolicited, humble opinion, that makes Arax a baby name trifecta. And then one of Amy’s sisters pooped on her parade. “You can’t name the baby Arax … everyone will call her Ajax.” See what I mean?

Even my Dad, who managed to keep (most of) his opinions to himself as each grandchild was named, no doubt because he figures it’s a losing battle — “None of my friends like the names their children gave their grandchildren” he says — even he jumped into the fray when we were working on the middle name. We were considering …no, had actually started telling people that we had picked Emory, to honor some relative on Stewart’s side. Then I heard through the grapevine (and by that I mean my sister) that the family was pissed that we weren’t naming after at least one of my grandparents who’d recently passed away. That’s a Jewish thing, like not eating pork, having lox and real bagels for brunch (not those blueberry and jalapeno imposters) and eating Chinese food on Sunday nights. Okay, that last may just apply to New York Jews, but I always considered it the 11th commandment — Thou Shalt Eat Chinese food on Sundays.

My sister impressed upon me how unforgivable a gaffe not naming after one of my father’s parents would be. It’s bad enough that I haven’t been to High Holiday services since, oh …college, go out of my way to eat heartily on Yom Kippur, the most holy fast day, and that there are zero plans for Hebrew school or a Bar Mitzvah for the baby. But not having a J or H name … well, that would land me on my Mom’s grudge list for life. And trust me, she’s still ticked off about the time I shaved off my eyebrows and nearly burned her kitchen down so I’m on thin ice anyway.

So we dutifully sifted through ScottishBabyNames.com, again, for a suitable J name (after my Grandpa Joe) or an H name (after my Grandma Helen.). After much back and forth and forth and back and stressing and stewing some more — and with a firm veto on my part re Hamish (do I even need to explain why?) — we finally settled on Jonathan. And lucky us, instead of being in the doghouse, we actually earned some bonus points because not only does Jonathan have a “J” for my grandfather, but a “John” for Stewart’s grandfather. We scored the proverbial two birds with one stone, since gentiles like to name kids after the living! What a riot!

But at least after a lot of No ways and As ifs and Over my cold, dead bodys, Stewart and I finally agreed. Which isn’t always the case. I once knew a gal who had two first names and not in the Betty Jo or Mary Margaret sense either. Two separate first names. I met her as “Beth” but her family called her “Heidi.” Why? Her mom and dad couldn’t agree on what to call her, so she grew up with her dad calling her one name and her mom another. Talk about being a wee bit passive aggressive. Decades later, she sorted it out by using one name in business, the other for friends and family. And if that’s not confusing enough, now there’s a whole vogue for renaming the kid after he’s been around a few years. It’s like what? You know … you really don’t look like a Jason, we’re gonna call you Jared instead? And after the little tyke has gone through all that trouble to learn his name. Geez, just hand the kid a personality disorder, why dontcha? That’s gotta be worth years of couch time with a Park Avenue therapist. But who knows, maybe Jason/Jared on’t need braces, and it’ll all balance out. Though I wouldn’t count on it.

But here’s the thing. No matter what name you choose — and hopefully your choice doesn’t alienate your entire family or become the stuff of YouTube parody — the most important thing about your chosen name is to write it down and bring that bit of paper to the hospital when you deliver. This is absolutely key. Because, sweetie, after you push a baby the size of a watermelon out through a space that heretofore has accommodated nothing bigger than maybe the John Holmes replica dildo, you are going to be too doped up on pain meds to remember how to spell “Bob” on the form for the birth certificate. And that’s how my sister’s eldest ended up with “Eliajah” with an extra “A.” And how we got “Johnathan” with an extra “H.”

Well, actually the H was my husband, pinch-hitting for me in my drug-addled state. One school of thought on that is that Stewart simply can’t spell. But I like to think he snuck in an extra H as homage to my Grandma Helen. Then again, maybe it was for Hamish.