What's Dis?

Huh? Where am I? What's dis Interweb thing?

Why iz it so hard type wif dese mittens on? What does dis say, I cannot read.

Oh, hai. My name is Rebecca Marquis and I was born yesterday at 7:25 pm. I do not like to miss Jeopardy!, so I came out just in time.

I weigh 6 lbs and 10 ounces. I really like eating. My mommy and daddy are pretty cool people, but I'm not sure they know what hey are doing.

Ok, I'm bored and tired now. I go bak to seepin. Kiss me I'm cute. Luhzu all, bye bye!

Tiger's Cub, An Indecent Proposal Thwarted

I had this post’s outline already complete in my head. It was going to be brilliant. It was going to be self-promoting. It was going to be the first time I blatantly sold out my daughter for personal and (hopefully) financial gain. Then, it all came crashing down.

You see, Tiger Woods became a father on Monday. First of all, congratulations to the happy couple and Tiger, welcome to the Varsity Dad club. I hope that you have as strong a relationship with your child as you so clearly do with your mother and your late father.

After dispensing with the pleasantries in an open letter to Tiger and Elin, I would get to the heart of my correspondence. My daughter will be born in August and, after listing numerous reasons why, I was set to offer her hand in matrimony to Tiger and Elin’s newborn, Sam. Yes, I know it’s a bit early and that arranged marriages aren’t in vogue in the United States, but like bell bottoms and rotary phone ringtones, everything comes back in style at some point.

I have a good list of reasons, some serious, some funny, some absurd. And I was ready to send off my note of congratulations, along with my “sales pitch”, to the happy couple until I re-read the news item. Apparently, if Lefty and Sam marry, it will only be in Massachusetts. Sam Woods is a girl. Sam Alexis Woods, to be proper. Sam. Short for…Sam.

Now, I have nothing against the name Sam (What’s up, Sammy C?), nor do I have anything against the name Samantha. But when you start crossing common gender lines with names, it begins to bother me a bit. My wife and I recently had a discussion on this topic regarding one of our potential baby names. We liked the “shortened” form of this name, which would then be a traditional boy’s name. We ultimately ditched that name, but I was reminded of that conversation when hearing the news of Tiger’s baby.

I’m not surprised that Tiger pulled something like this, I mean, his given name is Eldrick, for goodness sakes. It might be tough for little Sam - many kids will get teased for having unusual names, and I’m sure Sam Woods will be no different. Granted, many kids don't have a mother who a Swedish model and a father is richer than chocolate soufflé, but still.

I just wish I knew all of this before I started poring over my assets for the dowry.

What's in a Name, Part IV (The Final Four)

Today I submitted for consideration four potential names for my daughter. I will not divulge them. The baby-naming process is drawing to a close, though I think that nothing will be final until August.

We pored over several books of baby names: some containing a mere 10,000, others up to 50,000. Following my self-imposed parameters (not to mention the near-constant "reminders" from my wife), I whittled our baby name list down to four. My Lovely Wife will select our daughter's first name from that list.

Finding one, let alone four, names that I liked was harder that I thought. Whether you are aware of it or not, I think we all have pre-conceived notions about certain names. I immediately discarded a name my wife really favored because I couldn't shake that it rhymed with "Bedelia" and wanted my daughter to live free of that connotation.

It's easy to pick a name that is cute for a baby, but tough to remember that my daughter will grow older with the same name. Can I really picture the name "Lexy" on a business card?

From 50,000 we are down to four. One of those four will be what I call my daughter for the rest of her life (unless she's in trouble, in which case she will be called by her full name).

The hardest part is going to be keeping quiet about the name after we pick it. One reason I tried to delay the naming process is to limit the chances I have to let the name slip out.

No matter which name we give our daughter, it will be perfect and, over time, we'll be hard pressed to recall the other three possibilities or even entertain calling our daughter by a different name. Though to be perfectly honest, I'm still partial to "Lefty."

What's in a Name, Part I
What's in a Name, Part II
What's in a Name, Part III

What's In A Name, Part III

Newspapers and Web sites with an "off beat news" section have been blowing up over this story in Sweden, where parents Michael and Karolina Tamaro are fighting to name their six-month old girl Metallica.

To me, the most notable part of the story isn't that the parents wanted to name their child Metallica - there are far more perplexing, silly, and downright demoralizing names out there. What I find interesting isn't any amount of public backlash, but that a Swedish governmental organization, the Swedish National Tax Board, apparently has the authority to register (or to block the registration of) baby names in that country. Little Metallica has already been baptized, but just like with marriage, the government has trumped god.

Baby names have been on my mind this week. In nine days, we will find out if "Lefty" is a boy or girl. Shortly thereafter, the lists of names My Lovely Wife and I have been working on will move from concept to reality. One of the lists will be thrown away, the other will become the centerpiece of my life.

One of the great things about this country, compared with the repressive cultures of other Draconian countries like, say, Sweden, is that you can name your baby whatever you wish. They may be urban legends, but should you ever run into a woman named Female, or Syphilis, or a gentleman named Nosmo King, or perhaps the siblings Orangejello and Lemonjello, you can thank this great country we live in.

My Lovely Wife and I can name our child whatever strikes our fancy. We could name our baby after a corporation, a television show, or a venereal disease, and no G-man is going to come around to stop us.

So in nine days, I will know if I'm having a son or a daughter. I'm guessing that within three-four weeks from now, I'll know my son or daughter's name. The only thing that is certain right now is that YOU won't know the name until my baby is born. The name is our little secret. Besides, when you've got a name as cool as Pantera, you want too keep it under wraps.

Oops.

What's In a Name, Part II

The book in front of me holds more than 50,000 names. From Aaliyah to Zyler. Somewhere, buried in these 582 pages, is my child's name. My Lovely Wife and I have already narrowed down our selections. We have two pages, one for each gender, of handwritten names. And no, you will not get to know what name we have chosen prior to birth; that way, should you choose (like I often do) to make fun of the name, you're insulting a person, not a vague concept.

In the classic book Fatherhood Bill Cosby famously advises prospective parents to name their child with a vowel at the end, so that the name will carry when you yell. Now that's some advice you can take to heart.

Beyond that, there are a few more parameters that I've set to help pick out the right name.

First, I like two-syllable first names. Mostly because I have a two-syllable last name, and with the right cadence, that construction fits right into the cheer, "FIRST Name, LAST Name, clap, clap, clapclapclap." I think this is more of a rule for a boy, I'm not sure that girls would have much use for this.

Second, no rhyming. Not much rhymes exactly with my last name (which, believe it or not isn't "JeltzFan,") but there are some names that come close: Jason, Mason, etc. Those are out.

Beyond that, the parameters are as follows:

• No Punctuation - That goes for apostrophes, commas, and question marks. I will allow anything that qualifies under the "special characters" list in Microsoft Word - the copyright symbol, pi, etc.
  
• No Geography - Madison and Cheyenne might be the new hotness right now, but I could see myself getting carried away and jotting "Bangor" or "Kansas City" on a birth certificate. Better to stay clear.
• No Verbs - If you're not careful, you might overlook that a name is a verb - I nearly did with a few fairly common names. How long, though, until we meet a girl name Dance or a boy named Jog?
• No Common Nouns - Extending the grammar theme here, I can't agree to name my child Seven, December, or Harp (all actual examples in the book I referenced above).
• No Famous Athletes - But, you say, I'm clearly a sports fan, how can I eliminate all famous athletes? Let me be a bit more specific. I will not be naming my child any of the following: Lavernues (hard to spell), D'brickashaw (punctuation mark), or Peerless (although it might be the loop hole to avoid trial by jury)

Like I said above, we've narrowed down from 50,000 to about 10-20 per gender, so if we're in a pinch, we can always draw names out of a hat. And besides, what are you going to do? Make fun of my baby's name? I'll take away your visitation rights.

And if none of our prospective names work out, there's always this Web site, which I recommend you go to now and come back to this site later.

What's In A Name, Part I

I've slipped into a bad habit lately, and I'm getting called out on it. Over the past few weeks, I've slipped into referring to my child as "he." It's entirely subconscious, but could be interpreted to mean that I'm "rooting" for one gender over the other. I'm not. It's just very difficult to refer to my child with the gender-neutral "it." Makes me think I'll be raising the villain of a Stephen King novel. Plus, when you slip from pronoun to possessive pronoun, "it" turns into a grammatical nightmare.

We tried to come up with alternative gender-neutral names, like "Baby TBD," "Belly Fruit," and "Tubey" (as in Baby "to be" - credit, my brother and sister-in-law), but none of those names seemed to stick.

When we saw our latest ultrasound photos, we were inspired. Our baby clearly has a preference and, whether it pans out or not, he/she/it has a name that will last until birth and beyond: Lefty.