Naming a Boy

I am coming to the realization that our son will be born nameless. My wife and I have reached an impasse on what to call him. Objectively, we are both to blame. I have an unabashed penchant for homages to musicians and comic book characters and she taught public school for so long that each of the names we had previously agreed upon are now off the table because, “I had a such-and-such once and he stabbed a disabled-nun.”

My wife leans toward family-member tributes, but by the third child we had exhausted all of the reasonable ancestral names and were looking at the business-end of Flossy and Homer. One solution was to saddle them with a second-string family name, but indoctrinate them to answer to something completely unrelated. I realize that several people have successfully employed this strategy, but I could not bring myself to join the “we will name him Perforation Roscoe Thaddeus but call him Bill” camp.  

The select few desirable names that survived the previous-pupil gauntlet had been already appropriated by close friends or family members who would hopefully remain within our child’s social orbit throughout their lives. This left us no choice but to go to The Internet. I did not want to us to be Bandwagon-Christeners, so I went to the social security administration website and looked at the most popular names of the 80’s…. the 1880’s.

Having perused the list, my first impression was that there was a striking number of popular names from this time period later assigned to Sesame Street Muppets (Grover, Bert, Oscar, Ernie). My second impression was that people were determined to utilize the letter H no matter what the cost. Hubert, Hiram, Horace, Harvey, Harold, Homer, Harley, Herman and Harry all made the best-of list.  

Scrolling through the subsequent decades of our nation’s Social Security rolls, I was amazed that from 1880 until 1920 the top three boy names in America remained unchanged. John, William, James.* Then, in 1920, Robert staged a coup pushing John, James and William to second, third, and fourth respectively. Robert maintained its dominance until 1940 when James took the top spot. While the Big 4’s popularity has fluctuated some, we have not yet had a decade where at least one of them does not hold a spot in the top ten.

Somewhat desperate, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and see what my peers were choosing to name their offspring:

Come Hell or high water, my cohorts are going to insure that if we start your name with an “r” it will be immediately followed by a “y.” The list is peppered with Ryan, Ryker, Rylee, Ryder, Ryleigh, and Rylan. These are not statistical anomalies. The aforementioned names accounted for 136,625 citizens born between 2010-2016.

Barring an “ry” duo, we reserve the right to place a “y” wherever the rest of you chumps would drop a vowel. Londyn, Kylee, Lyla, Ayden, and Kylie comprise over 107,000 kids.

Let’s say you like Ayden, but a someone beat you to it. That won’t stop my people. We will relegate it to a suffix without breaking a sweat. Jayden, Brayden, Kayden, Cayden, and Hayden (which made the best-of list on both sides) amassed a whopping 230,706 in just six years of procreation. Throw in the “Aydens” and you could repopulate Orlando.

There even appears to be an ongoing feud as to whether our daughters should be named Adalynn (12,549) Adalyn (12,859) or Adeline (12,848).

Like previous generations, we still love our Judeo-Christian / Bible names like Sarah, Mary, Abraham, Noah, Jonah, Cane and Abel. However, we also reserve the right to name our daughters Genesis (28,039) Trinity (20,976) and Eden (13,684).

Just to keep our edge, Luna (14,013) Serenity (28,063) Harmony (11,102) Destiney (17,346) Valentina (16,908) Ivy (13,684) and Ximena (13,700) were all very popular girl’s names. 

Getting desperate, I clicked on one of the “Unique Boy Names” ads that tend to come up when you have been searching for baby names.

The first list sounded like an American Gladiator call-sheet gave birth to a biker-gang sorting-hat. 

Ace, Blade, Spike, Falcon, Hawk, Blaze, Thorn, Steel, Phoenix and Ajax were a few standouts.

I then tried the “Baby Boy Names with Swagger List.” Featured names included Zenon, Cadmus, 

Racer and Brees. There was also an entry for Waldo but you would never live it down if you lost that poor kid.

Next was the “Rebel & Heartbreaker” boys’ names. Steel yourselves ladies….

Ajax, Arsen, Bacchus, Biff, Gael, Gannon, Hercules, Jed, Lars, and Rock. That site even had a helpful column that told you each of the name’s meanings. For instance; Rock means “rock or stone.” I am not joking.

Perhaps we will just name him Playden and be done with it……

*On a side note, the name Adolph enjoyed massive popularity in the United States for several decades with over 7,500 boys having been given the name by the time World War II started. I imagine the majority of them immediately began going by their middle names.