Go Ahead - Make my Name

When you have a new baby, the first thing you have to do is choose a name, which you will write down on an official document, and send off to an official-document place, and that name will be the child’s name from that moment on. You don’t have a chance to get to know the little bundle of joy for, say, 5 years first. No sir. When the kid is born, you have to slap a name on that birth certificate before you leave the hospital, or there’s no telling what will happen. And, of course, you want to use a name that’s related in some way to what you will actually call the child. Otherwise, they won’t answer to the name they’re called in school.

"Mark," the teacher will say, "do you know the answer to this question?" 

"My name is Sebastian," the child will reply. 

"Is that your middle name?" 

"No, it’s just my name." 

"O---K," the teacher will say. Then you will get a call, and  have to explain that, well, you had to pick a boy name and a girl name, and with these HMO’s and all, you don’t get three days anymore, you only get one - two at the most - unless, of course, there are complications, in which case you wouldn’t be up to thinking about it anyway. One name was the best you could do in advance, and it was a girl name, and at least you had known better than to use that one for a boy.

Some teacher will respond to all this by asking what the name was. Others will respond with a silence heavily laden with expectation and judgment. Over the years, you will meet with both, as you explain over and over that you and your spouse were unable to agree on one single name in advance, because you see, your ideas about what is an appropriate name for a human being are not the same, but of course that’s not something people usually think of before they get married. You will be telling the tale over and over - especially if you have more than one child whose real name you were unable to choose in advance.

It may happen that more than one of your children will have the same teacher. In that case, the hilarity will increase - as they say - exponentially. The teacher will see you as colorful - particularly red, as in red flag, and may be afraid to call you again. They will not be able to avoid you forever, though, because conference time always comes around. As the day draws nigh, they will stay awake nights worrying about it. When, in all innocence, you arrive expecting to confer with this teacher about your child’s academic progress, you will instead see a bug-eyed, nail-biting person, a person who cannot put together a single coherent sentence, no matter what you ask. After that, the teacher will be off the hook, but not you. You will now lie awake nights worrying that little Marylin’s teacher, who seemed OK when little Sebastian was in his or her class, now seems a little too - colorful - and God only knows what goes on in the classroom when the teacher is on the verge of nervous breakdown, and nobody there but little kids - innocent little kids. 

Not everyone wants to know their baby’s boy-or-girlness in advance, that is to say, before the baby emerges into the world, where its boy-or-girlness will be immediately discovered and announced. But if choosing names is a problem for you, it would be worth considering. Once you know, you could just choose the one name, and be done with it - unless, of course, you have twins. Or triplets. Or something.