Shit on my hands

BB

I hate my name. Sorry Mum. Fortunately I picked up a nickname in high school that has proved impossible to shake off, and while it’s a faintly ridiculous moniker (not a name you’d want to use when introducing yourself to a Nobel Prize for Science winner…more a name you’d imagine adorning the underwear label of a topless barmaid), it beats what I use when I sign on the dotted line. My name (Jessica), which my Mum stubbornly maintains was UNHEARD of in ’78, has been a fixture in the Top 5 girls names for more than ten years now, and I am 100% certain it was approximately as unique in ’78  as it is now. The name game is tough, unless you are completely bonkers (Hello, Sarah Palin! How’s Track? And Bristol? And little Trig?) You don’t want your kid to become ‘Jessica No. 6’ in her class at school. You don’t want to give them a common name but then (the horror, the horror) buggerise around with the spelling to render it ‘unique’ (Jesykkah). And you don’t want to lumber them with a name that makes them feel they would be better off as a morsel on an antipasto plate than a member of the human race. The list of name taboos is formidably lengthy….naming them after your favourite brand of ice hockey equipment ( Levi Johnson, father of Sarah Palin’s grandson Tripp Easton Mitchell), or your favourite band ( Trig Van Palin, named for Van Halen…Excuse me while I run around the block in a fit of merry mirth).  The most important thing to remember is that once your spawn starts walking, you will be screeching their name roughly 3,000 times a day  in an effort to set boundries and prevent them from decapitating themselves. And others. I called my daughter Clementine, a name that I still think is beautiful but, lord help me jesus, it is long. I’m nonplussed by the traditional shortening of her name., so that’s one strike against it. It was also somewhat difficult to stomach the reactions of some people (example: nurse at the hospital, when told my daughters name ‘oh bloody hell’; My dad  ‘That’s a fucked up name.You should call her Tina’). But ultimately I’m glad beauty won over functionality, even it means that when I’m feeling fatigued she is adressed simply as ‘you’ . You should name your kid whatever you damn well please and disregard all the naming rules as decreed by snotty upstarts like me . Mixamotosis is a great name. Go on, call him that!