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04 June 2006

A column published in the "Sunday Star-Times"

THE NAMING OF KIDS

One of the post-modern tests of both IQ and socio-economic status is one’s Christian name. You can divine whether a child will be a lawyer or a panel-beater, a beekeeper or a beneficiary… by the name that their parents gave them at birth.

It is such an unerringly accurate prescriptor that new entrant teachers now plot their reading recovery programme by the syllables in their charges’ names. The more Shanias and Shantelles, the less Louises and Claires – the more expansive the required budget.

Then there are those who purposefully misspell – the classic indicator for white/brown trashdom. Justyz, for example. Dynazti, another.

Mental health nurses plot similar trends. They all agree: unusual names require way more medication than usual ones. If you’re called Porteous or Porphyria … chances are you’re half way to loondom.

Until recently these observations were acutely anecdotal. But now scientific studies suggest a correlation between the affectation of a child’s name and its later affliction. Which means the progeny of Bob Geldof, Gerry Halliwell and Gwyneth Paltrow may as well book their analyst now. Fifi Trixibell, Bluebell and Apple were all destined for the couch the moment their parents went mad.

And isn’t that the thing about naming kids. Everyone wants a unique appellation for their unique kid. A cool name. Never a normal one. No Michaels nor Keiths, neither Karens nor Marys. Now it’s Ella and Edie, Noah and Nostradamus.

I admit I’m currently experiencing the same quandary. My partner Leo is due to give birth to our second child (our blended sixth in total) and the scans suggest that it will be another girl. Apparently males determine the sex and one’s age is the best indicator of gender. The older a male, the less robust his swimmers. Lower testosterone, lower motility - suddenly it’s a stamina event, not a speed one. And girl swimmers are stamina stoics.

Which might account for the gradual feminisation of our population – particularly the Pakeha population. As women have their children later, then the odds are that their partners are older too. So the older the male, the more likely a girl. Who knew that all my reproductive efforts were already clichéd?

Alhough I’m amazed at the number of people who express their own amazement that I already know the gender of my unborn daughter. Don’t you like surprises, they ask: it’s like opening your presents before Christmas.

I’m sorry, but straining a bloody basketball through a vagina designed for reverse entry, does not sound like Christmas to me. Last time I was in the birthing unit, I needed the gas, the soothing music and the pethidine just to witness the ordeal.
So, I like to limit the possibilities. Knowing the gender, means that I won’t worry that the midwife has snipped something other than the umbilical cord. It means that we can economise by recycling all her older sister’s clothes. But mostly it means we get the name right. We have months to prepare.

Neither of us will be exhausted from the labour, so it lessens the chances of naming her after the label on the mattress or the midwife. It also means resisting that impulse to name her Nepheriti or Sheba because the nitrous oxide hasn’t yet lost its hold. Better still, it gives you an opportunity to research all the spinster aunts and divine their likely legacy.

Yeah, but naming a child is also about rejection. Rejecting all the names of all the people that have ever irritated, jilted or delivered poor service in shops. As you get older, that list grows. Then there are the names of your friends’ and relatives’ kids. For example, I’ve always liked Rebecca as a name. Vicki. Grace. And all the people I’ve ever known with those names I’ve found to be generally amiable human beings. Or hot.

Forget it. Either too close a relative, or too close a friend, has already nabbed those names for their own kids. Or their dogs. This growing tendency of giving the family pet an anthropomorphic moniker has already caused problems. Who knew that there were so many Labradors out there named Lucy?

We had thought we were safe in naming our first child. Lucy being a sufficiently traditional but trendy name designed not to excite too much attention during all those cruel, school years. And it’s there the real problems with strange names begin. Kiwi psychologist Sarah Chatwin says that giving your child an unusual name is an invitation to playground terror.

Ironically the child who got the hardest time at my primary school was a junior called Jonah. It took a hulking Tongan All Black to disassociate that particular name from the biblical whale. And there’s another peril – future-proofing your kid against the coming trends.

Dick, being a case in point. It was a robust boys name in the ‘50s and ‘60s but now it’s a lewd insult. There are similar problems with Regina. Ditto Charlotte.

Maybe - but parents will always strive for something just that little different. And still end up with having five or six of the same named kids in your child’s classroom. Which is why we’ve gone Greek for inspiration this time.

Zoe . Zoe Helena.

The latter a family name modernised. But Zoe because … dammit because its so neat to spell. You can put umlauts over the ‘o’ or the ‘e’ and impress dinner guests by saying that it derives from the dawn of western civilisation.

Whether Zoe will thank us in years to come … now that’s the truest test. But at least she won’t be able to blame her name for any behavioural tics. That will be all down to her family.

ENDS