What's In A Name?

A lot, IMO.

At 11:30 PM on June 4, 2012 #MyNameWasSupposedToBe was trending on twitter in Washington. Legend has it that one of the names on the short-list of possible names for me was "Roxanne."

...I know, I know. Honestly what I think happened was my mom didn't get weird food cravings, but rather weird name cravings. I can't think of one single other reasonable way to describe her near lack of judgement. I get that hormones make you do crazy things, but 'Roxanne' would have been cruel. I mean, being the rockstar that I am, I naturally would have been able to rock 'Roxanne' (no pun), but it would have been unfair and I would have faced adversity my whole life. 'Allison' is about average. Not excessively common, but not abstract. Just normal. It suits me well. My sister used to try and tell me that I was named after Allison Transmission, and even if that were true I'd prefer that over Roxanne.

Allison didn't make the Top 40 Baby Names of 2012, but 'Zoey' did. Sometimes I don't get you people. Zoey? Isabella? Jacob? Just how many people are naming their kids after Twilight characters/Disney channel stars? Number 1 for boys is MASON?! As in Kourtney Karshdashian's baby with the angry eyebrows??  Is someone going to have to name their kid iCarly before we start saying parents are going too far?

And what is really good with hipster names? I love this article. "Why do parents who are making such efforts to move ahead of the crowd end up simply jumping off a groovier bridge?" These are the questions... 

It's a little different for animals, I know, but nonetheless I have been agonizing over the name of my future kitten (ETA June 20)! The pressure isn't particularly crippling because it's not even a question of whether or not kitty and I are going to be ride or die, but I would still feel bad giving it a weird name regardless of the fact that the love between us will be unconditional. I'm going with 'Oliver' for a boy (which I'm hoping for), or 'Ollie' when it's just the two of us running around the apartment and jumping on the bed. Oliver made it onto the top (human) baby names list linked above, but as far as I'm concerned Oliver is only appropriate for orphans and kittens.

It seems that people aren't always as cautious as me in naming living beings. I met a woman and her puppy in an elevator sometime last month. She was be-floppy hatted, but otherwise she seemed ordinary. The dog started licking my hand as an introduction and then she announced, "This is Justice...Justice Dandelion" (verbatim).

Whoa, excuse me? Stop right there. I almost called PETA immediately because this is obviously a form of animal cruelty. Justice Dandelion? Why? JD is going to have his ass HANDED to him at the dog park, and it is completely this woman's fault.

Granting a name to another living being is a sacred opportunity. To some degree you control someone else's identity. Let's be serious--anyone that names their kid Allison but uses "Y" instead of "I" or the dreaded single "L" is setting their daughter up for imminent failure. The poor girl could never feel complete, and who wants to live that way?