An Answer for Anonymous...
Someone sent me an anonymous comment to one of my blog postings, and while it took a long time to isolate what it was Anonymous was commenting on, I finally found it. And so here is the comment, and my answer to it.
Anonymous said...
Anonymous, it turned out, was writing in response to my posting Just Because YOU find it Boring... dated 29 January 2006. I read it over and found the only reference to kids:
"Don't laugh - this is juicy stuff! This is the stuff of real life! Yes, I know, Angelina Jolie is pregnant with Brad Pitt's baby. No offence, but really - who cares? People have babies all the time - but volcanoes are not constantly spouting in the Cascades or in Alaska. Well, they really are - at least, worldwide - but still much more exciting than Angelina Jolie's impending doom - I mean, parenthood. All I want to know about Angelina and Brad's kid is that they don't name it after a fruit or a crime or any thing wacky that this poor kid will have to live with!
Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches, Apple, Coco, Phineas and Hazel, Stella, Emerson (for a girl, no less), Alchamy, Nico Blue, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (could I make that up?!), Prince Michael (not that anyone expects normalcy from Michael Jackson, but the ego...), Steveanna Genevieve, Beauregard, Tallulah Pine, Moon Unit, Atticus, Banjo, Betty Kitten, Blue Angel (for shame, Edge!), Elijah Bob Patricus Guggi Q (worse shame, Bono! And I looked up to you!), Pilot Inspektor, Liberty, Scout, Speck Wildhorse, and my all-time favourite (and most mentally disturbing for the kid), Moxie Crimefighter. That is from Penn Jillette, another person I thought highly of and have had to revise downward to some degree. (And gods help me, she's pregnant again... what'll it be this time?)
Ouch. Now you see why I prefer volcanoes to celebrities and their baby names choices. (Although Gwyneth Paltrow is pregnant again and I wonder... will it be Grapefruit? Grape? Orange? Maybe too typical for them... Kumquat? Pomegranate? Acorn Squash? Oops - that is a veggie. Wrong food group..."
Well, Anonymous, do I have a study or some graph that shows that this is mentally cruel? No, I don't - at least, not directly on hand. I suspect that if I went on to Yahoo! or Google that I could find something some where that would corroborate that - just as much as I could find something that would refute that statement. The Internet is a known source of information and disinformation.
However, I was a kid and knew other kids and now I know people with kids. And children are, without exception, cruel. They are quick to find others' weaknesses and display them; they are fast to find that one thing that can be made fun of to the point of ridiculousness. Children are heartless and terrible to one another. And I cannot say that there were not times when I was just as heartless and cruel and did not do something in that category in an effort to deflect negative attention from myself or as a survival tactic, as school (especially middle and high school) is the worst kind of proving ground and home to all forms of child-to-child sadism (or masochism... I always confuse those).
So you might say, Anonymous, so what if I named my child "Apple" or "Moxie Crimefighter"? Ah, but there is the first thing - the very, very first thing - that any adversarial child will latch onto - the one thing you cannot hide - your name. My last name is Kellogg. I love my last name now and I did survive school - an amazing thing, I feel, as social situations were never my forte and definitely I stuck out like a sore thumb then. But when I was in school, my real last name and my current last name were burdens.
I need to explain the hard part of Kellogg. It is not what you think. That would be the obvious answer. "Rice Crispies", "Corn Flakes", blah, blah, blah, the list is endless. It was "Smellogg" that really bothered me. And there were other less pleasant variations of that. My first name has its pitfalls, too - "ass-in-a-sling", "ashhole"... you get the picture. Your name is what identifies you, what makes you you, escpecially as a child when it is a lot harder to know your self - kids don't have a strong conscious idea of their self as individuals. Adults usually do (although not all of them, which is really a pity), and so it becomes easier to shrug off the verbal slings and arrows of others.
However, my legal last name at the time was worse - Trebilcox, if you can imagine - so I never used it. Also, I have always been my step-father's daughter, not Harry Trebilcox' so I used Kellogg. I wrote it on my homework with Trebilcox on it the first couple of weeks in parenthesis and then I would drop it entirely. The teachers seemed to not care and the kids... well, they were fixated on Kellogg. Most if not none had no clue that there was another surname in there at all. Now, if you cannot figure out what would come out of Trebilcox, well, ask and I will tell.
So, Anonymous, you are completely and 100% right. I have no scientific empirical evidence that points to nomenclature being a point of cruelty to your child. One the other hand, what else is science but evidence seen first-hand and then tested? But you were child once. Maybe you were at the higher end of the food chain in school... but at some point, in some moment in time, you were tortured by your peers - everyone in the world experiences it at some point. Armed with what you know, would you not make every effort to make your child's journey through life - especially his or her childhood and all those visible and invisible rites of passage - easier? I know I would. And so "Banjo" and "Blue Angel" would come off the list.
I don't think famous people do this to be intentionally cruel to their offspring. Just like the rest of us with not a shred of fame on such a huge scale, famous people come in all sizes and shapes as parents. (I must admit that I would be the first to string up Britney Spears, who was kind enough to name her child Sean - a good Irish name - but ungodly thoughtless and stupid and criminally negligent to hold her unrestrained infant in her lap whilst in a moving vehicle - there is no - NO - excuse for that! And then there is Michael Jackson - okay, okay, don't let me get started!) And while I still really do hold Penn Gillette, Bono and the Edge in very high regard as people and for their opinions on things, I still would not be able to resist asking, "What were you thinking?" when it came to burdening their children with such names, because banal curiousity as well as scientific interest would prompt me to do so.
Well, Anonymous, I hope you come back and visit. And I hope you strike up another debate or discussion on something you agree or disagree with. I only ask one favour - just let me know which specific post you are responding to - it makes a little easier for me to respond in a timely fashion!
Good night, Anonymous and ponder well!
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