Self-appointed baby name guru, Bruce Lansky has released another column to Strollerderby, giving us his wisdom for baby naming in difficult economic times. Parents should name their children more conservatively in a troubled economy, says Lansky. Why? Here's an excerpt from his latest email-circulated "column":
"whimsical, flip, silly, quirky, or unconventional names that seem to have been picked out of a hat won’t impress employers when your child is applying for a job...Probably the best overall guidance for selecting a solid name is to picture it on your child’s resume. Does the name convey the image of someone who’s stable, reliable, and to be taken seriously?"
He then goes on to list your basic, middle-class white names as good bets, giving the thumbs down to names popular among working-class or nonwhite families. He also recommends not naming your child Adolf Hitler, Sadam, or Paris (a la Hilton), since these names have negative connotations.
Really? Thanks for the tip, Bruce!
But I say name your kid what you want. I am tired of hearing everybody weigh in on whether a name is too long, too flip, too ethnic, too unusually spelled, too trendy, too old-fashioned...too, you-name-it.
Lansky wants a return to the good old days when everyone was named William, John, Robert, Elizabeth, Katherine or Sarah. Those names are classics, indeed, and will never die. But in an age when a man named Barack Hussein can become the most powerful man in the world in his mere forties, I wouldn't be so daring as to predict what will look good on a resume 25 years from now.
No one should tell you what to name your baby. Naming a baby is personal business and should be off-limits of the judgment of others. Sure kids grow up hating their names. Those kids can march right to a judge and change their names when they turn 18. They can go informally by whatever name or nick-name they choose in the meantime.
I submit that a name never ruined a child's life. Even little Adolf Hitler is in trouble less because of his name than because of his crazy parents. His name may indeed be evidence of their crazy, but it doesn't define it. Rather, they'd be just as crazy whatever they'd named their son.
It's my opinion that when it comes to baby names, we all keep our opinions to ourselves. What do you say? Should baby names be held to some standard outside family choice?
