What's In a Name

Have you ever had something just get stuck in your mind?  Not anything that should be particularly troubling but just something that keeps bugging you - something that you should have let go a long time ago?  Maybe too specific... let's just say I've got a brain hickup that doesn't seem to want to go away and I thought maybe if I just let it out I might cure it.

It's all about The Girl and her name.

She has a perfectly nice name but it's rather common.  In case you haven't read my whole life history of parenting in this site, The Girl, well, all my kids, are adopted.  She came with the name she has and we only changed the spelling and her middle names.

That may seem like an odd thing to say - after all, she was 5 months old, of course she had a name... but she was young enough that we could change it without much confusion but The Dad and my mother liked the name she came with and I was somewhat over ruled when it came to the idea of changing it.

There seems to be an art of sorts to names.  When it comes time to name your baby, people get books, listen to the sound of the name ... first, middle, last... all together now.. does it sound good? (remember to do just the first and last name together - it's not likely that anyone is going to use the middle name in every day life!)

There's really no question when it comes to naming your biological child.  You can literally do what you want (despite what the rest of your family thinks).

If you're a celebrity, you have the distinct position of choosing ANY name or even a sound for your child and the masses of average folk shake their heads in dismay when some celebrity names their child after a country or a fruit.  I have to admit, some of the wilder ones have had me wondering if the celebrity status will save the child from a life of embarrasment over their moniker or if the "children are cruel" addage is true regardless of who your dad is.

But when your baby comes with a name already, it tends to be a bit of discussion on the ethics of changing his or her name.

We changed Dervish's name but kept his given first name as a middle name because it had meaning to his birth mother.  The Pie, well, his birth mother asked us what we wanted to name him and she named him our choice of names.

But I digress.  The fact is that I like unusual names.  Not ridiculous names but unusual names.  I like the name "Suri" (Tom Cruise's baby) and I also like the name Shiloh (Brad & Angelina)... I'm not crazy about Apple or Dweezle or Moon Unit.

Oh.. ya, back to the hickup.... The Girl's name is 'ordinary' and not a name that I was crazy about.  I wanted to name her Scotia or Scosha (sounds better than it looks in my opinion).  It's too late now - 3.5 years too late but it's been stuck in my brain.  It just keep popping up out of nowhere and driving me crazy wishing I had pushed for the name I loved instead of going with the flow.  Maybe telling the world about it will cure me.