Sometimes parents bemuse me. Actually a lot of the time parents bemuse me - sometimes they make me freeze in utter shock. And one of the things that never fails to amaze me is the utter disregard they have for their child's future when naming them. Would you trust a lawyer called Sunbeam? A doctor called Fifi trixiebell? And cute as it may be when the little one is crawling about the floor at play group, they face a world of pain from the other pupils when they reach school.I blame celebrities. They have now become the official role models of society and as such pretty soon I should expect to have classes filled with Apples and Peaches and Moxie Crimefighters and Audio Sciences and Sage Moonbloods. The Edge called his child Blue Angel and Nicolas Cage gave his child Superman's real name (Kal El, not Clarke Kent.) How can I respect men who could do this to their own flesh and blood?
Copying celebrities can be extremely dangerous. After David and Victoria named their son after his place of conception (Brooklyn) one couple followed suit - they tried to call their son Busstop.
Yes while Celebrities can be odd, regular folks can be downright cruel. Consider life if you were called any of the following: Nasdaq, Confidenze, Orangeyello, Stallion, Batman Bin Suparman, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence, Laurel Hardy, Russell Sprout, Skye Rockett, Chris Cross, Mary Christmas, Barb Dwyer... the list is huge. You can check out a few that TheBabyWebsite.com found if you want more.
Some countries have laws against things like that. I remember a while back a Court in New Zealand removing a girl from her parents because they had called her Tallulah Does the Hula in Hawaii. They claimed it was a form of abuse and made her a ward of the state until she could have the name changed. That was extreme but I can understand why.
So what brought this on? Why am I suddenly so worried about names? Well this morning I encountered a pupil called Robert Sands. And anyone who calls their son that, then sends him to a Protestant School in a loyalist area of Northern Ireland clearly must be insane.
