Comfort Levels, a Sad Situation, and the Name Game

If I were Johnny Carson doing Carnac the Magnificent, what would be the question? I didn't mean for the title to come out that way, but I'm leaving it because I like its silliness.

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By the way, I know you lurkers are out there; my hit counter tells me so. Introduce yourself! I want to know who you are. You don't have to post, you can send me PM or email. Don't be shy! I don't bite. Promise.

Now, down to business.

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I guess I’m feeling more and more comfortable with the topic of our adoption journey. I was talking to a dear friend who was joking about DINKs (double income, no kids) within another topic of discussion, and I said we might not be in that category for too much longer, and told her about our journey at a high level. She never got the chance to ask deeper questions than what part were we were at because she was making dinner and then had to go.

On the other hand, my in-laws have not brought up the topic once since calling us when they filled out the questionnaire. I asked DH why, and he shrugged. “You know how weirdly secretive they are about some things... maybe they’re still hoping we’ll have our own.”

“Yeah, well,” I replied, “We did too.”

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Keep the good thought for a childhood friend of mine. Last week, she let the cat out of the bag that she’s pregnant. This week, she left a cryptic status on FB that sort of bothered me. Instead of embarrassing myself since we haven’t seen each other in twenty years by asking what she meant on the public page, I asked her via FB email what was up.

Her boyfriend is leaving her (I thought she was married – she listed a married name and listed herself as such... interesting, but I didn't pursue the topic). He’s going home. Home is across the Atlantic. And he’s going back to his ex. Ow. She didn’t say whether his departure is in reaction to the news that she’s pregnant, but I suspect it is. Obviously, she’s devastated.

Oh, and did I mention that she also learned last week she’s having twins? It looks like she’s going to have to raise them as a single mother. What a rough situation. Poor girl.

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Not only in Blogland, but also among RL friends, we have seen parents-to-be put through the wringer. I have seen people who are normally not really so rude barge in when it comes to this topic. I have also seen some ask the people in Blogland for suggestions on what to name their child. I just sigh.

When my friends M and AJ were expecting their son, AJ’s grandparents were insistent on some ridiculously long and unpronounceable Dutch name (AJ is of Dutch descent, hence the nickname of “the Flying Dutchman” when we worked together many moons ago – mostly because of him flying off the handle). As it is, the boy shares his fine name with the heir to the Dutch throne, entirely by coincidence.

I think that when the time comes, we will keep our traps shut about the names DH and I have discussed. Maybe we’ll be snarky and say we’re thinking about Milton and Bertha, or Archibald and Gladys, or tell them if a boy, we’ll call him after great uncle Elbert... if a girl, after great-great-aunt Inez... you know, give out awful names like that, and enjoy the reactions.

Everyone has an opinion. I didn’t really mind what my sister named my nephew almost twelve years ago, since it was a family name on my BIL’s side of the family (even though it’s not my style). But if he had been a she, I would have objected strenuously to my sister, as she was dithering between Sierra and Cinnamon, with Cinnamon starting to pull away... until the ultrasound showed quite clearly that these names would not be needed, thank God.

Sierra was very, very trendy at the time of Nephew’s birth, and Cinnamon was – is –well... a pole-dancer’s name. The middle name my sister had chosen was her middle name, which is our grandmother’s first name. If it had been a girl, I would have always called her by the middle name in protest.

I'm hoping my brother and his wife pick a good name for the kid-to-be. My other brother's kids have great, timeless and ageless names that I would use if they'd not been named as such.

Amongst my RL friends, there are a lot of really nice names: Joseph, Sarah, Michael, Paul, Abigail, Emily, Juliana, Nicholas, Madeline, Amanda, Dennis, Caitlyn (missed the proper spelling by one letter), Jeremy, Sophia, Thomas... and the latest is Lucy Rose, which, while not something I would pick for my child, I think lovely and elegant and goes perfectly with the eight syllable surname.

There are many friends with the trendy and not-so-great names, which I will refrain from listing. The three that stand out are 1) a daughter with an ethnic name that will cause her to be teased in middle school; 2) the Sarah/Emily pattern (of which there are multiple kids by those names in our circle), which makes them the Jennifers of their generation; and 3) Brady, which is sorta trendy right now for boys.

Our tastes run to the traditional, not trendy. You will never see under our roof:

• the –aden illness (Aden/Jaden/Caden/Braden and their awful alternative spellings)
• the surname (Madison, Blake, Mackenzie, Addison, Riley, Mason, Hunter)
• the place name trend (Brooklyn, Paris, Sedona),
• the overused Old Testament names (Noah, Jacob, Caleb, Benjamin, Nathan)
• the Regency Revival names (Olivia, Emma, Sophia, Amelia).
• the “apostrophe catastrophes”
• the name smooshes
• the creative spellings
• the superfluous Ys (Jordyn, Mykynzy, Mykah, Cydney, Blayre – oooh, spell check didn’t like these when I did the draft in Word).

And let’s not get into the Hollywood names that make your brain bleed, such as the mind-blowing Bronx Mowgli, Fifi Trixibell, Sage Moonblood or Petal Blossom Rainbow.

My kid’s name has to pass the President/Senator/Doctor/other prestigious job test. I took several “trendeigh” names, put them with some common last names, and am presenting them that way just for kicks:

Senator Paesley Zoeigh Jones.
Doctor Arrynn Xan Pappas.
Congressman Khassendra Parys Kelly.
Professor Raiden Baloo Rodriguez.
General Jayden Fenix Braylon Schultz.
Attorney Nevaeh Sawyer Brown.
President Krystofur Ace Thomas.

See? It just doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. My spell check went haywire when I wrote this list - always a bad sign. And yes, they are real names that real people have named their children.

Will I announce it on the Internet when the time comes? I think a fellow blogger has the right idea: leave it up on a post the first few days and then remove it, then use an initial or nickname from there on out.