The Game of the Name

I think there is a lot behind a name. It is not really that I pay attention to the meaning of a name, but rather that a name takes someone from being just another unknown to being a very specific person. That is precisely why I named each of my kiddos before they were born. I felt more bonded to them than if I had spent nine months talking about "The Baby" or "It". But of course there were some hiccups.

First, we did not find out the gender with our first born. Therefore, we needed a gender-neutral name. When I was little, my dad lovingly referred to me as Munchkin Breath. And much like the quandary of The Purple People Eater (did IT eat only purple people, or was IT purple and ate all different kinds of people?) my dad's nickname left me to wonder if my breath smelled of Munchkins because I was one and this would be expected, or was I some kind of Munchkin Eater who dreamed of dining in Oz. I never did figure it out. But to this day I smile when in my head I can hear my dad's voice calling, "Hey, Munchkin Breath". So I wanted my first born to share in that delight and from the start she has been The Munchkin.

The Cowboy was a little bit of a different story. I wanted to use the ever popular Peanut as we had not yet found out if he was a he or if he was a she. However, The Farmer was totally against it siting that Peanut was not suitable for a boy and we needed to pick a nickname that was really "bad ass". My frustrated response to that was, in hindsight, a poor response. In a snarky tone I asked if he meant something like Dragon. This he loved! So for the remainder of the pregnancy The Cowboy was Dragon. Now, you may wonder why he is not Dragon still. And to this I say, yeah right, like you would let the nickname Dragon hang on any longer than necessary.

Last came our little Ladybug. We somehow called her Bug from the very beginning. I had in my mind that if we learned she was a boy the name would stay just as Bug. But if she was a girl (and I really didn't think she was) that she would become The Ladybug. It is definitely the best suited of the three. I am thinking we should legally change her name to The Ladybug. Of course, that may be viewed as weird and she would likely hate us for it down the road. Fine, nickname only.

Besides getting to identify with our otherwise yet identified babies, these nicknames gave us a way to avoid telling our name options. It is amazing how quick people are to shoot down a potential baby name. Even if you preface it by telling them you do NOT want their feedback this IS the name either way, people will openly mock you and your baby-on-the-way. They will make up every rhyme they can think of, share every crude joke that could possibly be associated with the name and then will say your boy will be a sissy and your girl a stripper. Don't believe me? Go throw some names around and see what happens. But please, please don't throw out the one you really, really want or you could get stuck with a name you didn't really want, like Dragon.