My Dear Hard Drive

As I already told you, I got a new Barbie-doll just in time for New Years Eve. As I liked her so much, she needed the perfect name. As she was a gift from my husband, he had to agree on the name. Now, I have to say, the seriousness of naming a Barbie-doll doesn’t even come close to naming a baby, and we still could not agree on the name until yesterday.

First, I wanted to name her Norah. My husband refused, because, to him the name was a bogan name. (Translation to you non-Aussies, bogan is Aussie for a ‘hick’.) Now I still completely disagree, and even though he told me to ask ‘any Aussie’, I haven’t got the same response to the name. Regardless, Norah was vetoed.

I was rather heart broken, but suggested, as suggested to me by a lovely member of theBdoll.com, Valkyrie. A vampiric name that would easily shorten itself into Val. The hubby vetoed. That was the first name of his mother, who hates her name and uses her second name. As much as I love my mother-in-law, associating her with my favourite, super sexy Barbie-doll didn’t really fly with me either.

For days I tried to fit names after names on her, but then, out of the blue I noticed a cashiers name tag. ‘Rebecca‘ it said. I almost leaned over to kiss her, Rebecca is a fantastic name – not too pretentious, not too common, doesn’t sound like a bloody Disney-character, has a great opportunity to nicknaming and has a lot of character. My husband agreed, Rebecca is a lovely name. So for 2 days my doll was called Rebecca. BUT…

As I finally found a lovely name like that, even the list of baby names on a recent BlogCatalog-conversation that made me want to puke wouldn’t sway me from believing that there could be even more lovely girl names. I overheard a new mother gloat on Saturday night that she’s out for the first time without Olivia. It was very scary she said, but what ever she went on to next was lost with me. Olivia. Now that is a lovely name, isn’t it? My husband disagreed. Even though Olivia was a lovely name, it wasn’t sassy enough for my red headed doll. So he went online to look some real red head names.

We got a short list Agnes, Meg, Megan, Jonet, Gayle, Esther. And now, I’m leaning towards Megan. I am imagining my favourite Ken-doll Alex lovingly call her Nutmeg. That is because she’s a bit nuts and her nickname is Meg. Get it? *looks excitedly towards the reader*.

All that fuss over a doll’s name made me think what a huge responsibility it is for a parent to pick the right name for the child. Some children have the luxury of having a pet name… that they like. My family tried to call me “Riinukka” or worse still, “Riinuli” for years, but finally stopped after I got a temper tantrum every time I heard either of them. It fought against everything I knew about myself. First, it was continued from my already hated first name Riina, which to my musical ear sounds like screaming. Secondly, the thing I liked about my name was that it was a strong name. It was no push-over name, and what do they do, they put the demeaning endings to them, making the name sound like someone who was cuddly and sweet. I may have been shy, but good heavens I was not cuddly. Eventually, I required everyone to call me Riku, which is a guy’s name.

There was another thing I liked about my name. It was unique. I met another Riina when I was 10 years old or something. I was shocked. I hated her from the day I met her, because the bitch had the audacity to use my name. Every day I felt sorry for my class mates who had been named with the current fashion names, and they had to attach the first letter of their last name to make a difference between other class mates. When their mates got tired of using their real name with the letter attachment, they twisted their last names into something like Silli, which means a Herring. No matter how much young Mr. Herring objected to his name, it was way too convenient to call him that, because there was two others with a little more fortunate last names that weren’t easy to twist into funny nicknames.

So, consider this a plea for the children you are about to name. Think about it. Automatically disregard the top 30 most popular names in your country. Don’t name them after the biggest stars, no matter how much you love the starlets. Try to find a name with as little baggage with it as you possibly can. Consider the name of the distant auntie you hate if her name is nice. (I was about to be named Jenny, but my grand mother knew a Jenny she didn’t like. I so wanted to be a Jenny. Maybe I wouldn’t have been half as shy if I didn’t have to be afraid of hearing my name being uttered out loud.) Think and consider. It’s not just your little baby. The little baby will grow bigger, and she or he has to go into the world with that name attatched to him or herself. Use your imagination to find the meanest associations you can think of with the name. If you can’t think of any, maybe the class mates can’t either. Here’s to hoping.