Before you fill out the "name" line on your baby's birth certificate application, take a step back and remember: your child is going to have to live with this decision for the rest of his or her life.
Don't be ironic. Don't try to be funny. Just imagine what that name will look like to a HireBot 3000 on a job application to Starbuxxon-Mobilsoft in the late 2030s.
Of course, if you're a rich and famous celebrity, this rule doesn't apply. Not only will your child's inherited wealth, status, and influence in the rarified society he'll inhabit make the stigma of a novelty name irrelevant, it will be the LEAST of his concerns after eighteen years of a drink-addled, self-involved mother, an aloof, philandering father, three to seven step-parents, a peer group experimenting with heroin in 5th grade, and a steady stream of non-English-speaking immigrant nannies as primary caregiver.
However, if you DO live in reality, here's a sampling (which I'll expand upon in the future) of definite "DON'Ts" - ideas to steer clear of when making that huge decision: what will be the word you shriek in violent rage the first time junior spits up all over your MacBook keyboard:
AUTHORS - Absolutely screams pretense. Naming a child "Hemmingway", "Fitzgerald", "Faulkner", "Cervantes", "Kafka", or "That Weird New Age Chick Who Wrote 'The Secret'" is ALWAYS a bad idea.
"JERMAJESTY" - Jermaine Jackson's seventh child has either the greatest name in the history of the English language OR the worst. But, in either case, best it just be used that once, methinks.
NEW YORK CITY BOROUGHS - Brooklyn Beckham and Bronx "Ashlee Simpson's son" Wentz are actually both decent enough-sounding names. But the only person naming their kid "Long Island" should be rapper Ice-T ... And actually, Long Island isn't even a borough of NYC, as I just discovered on Wikipedia, so scratch that, too.
Don't be ironic. Don't try to be funny. Just imagine what that name will look like to a HireBot 3000 on a job application to Starbuxxon-Mobilsoft in the late 2030s.
Of course, if you're a rich and famous celebrity, this rule doesn't apply. Not only will your child's inherited wealth, status, and influence in the rarified society he'll inhabit make the stigma of a novelty name irrelevant, it will be the LEAST of his concerns after eighteen years of a drink-addled, self-involved mother, an aloof, philandering father, three to seven step-parents, a peer group experimenting with heroin in 5th grade, and a steady stream of non-English-speaking immigrant nannies as primary caregiver.
However, if you DO live in reality, here's a sampling (which I'll expand upon in the future) of definite "DON'Ts" - ideas to steer clear of when making that huge decision: what will be the word you shriek in violent rage the first time junior spits up all over your MacBook keyboard:
AUTHORS - Absolutely screams pretense. Naming a child "Hemmingway", "Fitzgerald", "Faulkner", "Cervantes", "Kafka", or "That Weird New Age Chick Who Wrote 'The Secret'" is ALWAYS a bad idea.
"JERMAJESTY" - Jermaine Jackson's seventh child has either the greatest name in the history of the English language OR the worst. But, in either case, best it just be used that once, methinks.
NEW YORK CITY BOROUGHS - Brooklyn Beckham and Bronx "Ashlee Simpson's son" Wentz are actually both decent enough-sounding names. But the only person naming their kid "Long Island" should be rapper Ice-T ... And actually, Long Island isn't even a borough of NYC, as I just discovered on Wikipedia, so scratch that, too.
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