A conversation with my 7-year-old son, Braden, this morning:
Braden: I want a Wii U for Christmas. Do you think Santa will bring it for me?
Me (changing the subject a little bit): I don’t know. What do you think your baby brother will want?
Braden: A name.
While Braden’s baby brother is still a month or so away from being born, coming up with a name for the child seems to be a longer distance away. Every time my wife, Jenny, and I think we have one, we find a reason not to use it.
My suggestions – Thor, Conan, Kreese, Kurgan, Vader and Bruce – have all been rejected by Jenny. She doesn’t care much for superheroes, movie villains and musicians, apparently.
In turn, I’ve rejected some of her suggestions – Evan, Ethan, Owen, Ian and Andrew. I guess I’m not a fan of names starting with vowels.
Some names we’ve both liked we’ve secretly tested out with others – others being mainly Braden – didn’t pass muster. One name, which I’m not going to reveal due to the possibility we may still go with it, he quickly said was a “girl’s name,” although neither of us had thought so.
A few names are on our “strong possibility” list, but they haven’t made the “definite” list. This is worrisome because Braden’s name made that list early in our selection process, and it never came off it. While we like some of the names on the “strong possibility” list, the fact they haven’t made the “definite” list, yet, makes us think another name is out there waiting for us to find it.
Finding names is pretty easy, as they are all around us. Just browse through the pages of this paper and you’re sure to see dozens of different names, with a wide variety of spellings.
I’m a sucker for using names from movie characters or musicians, while Jenny is big on classic-sounding names that aren’t too popular, yet. Using these criteria, how we came up with Braden is anyone’s guess? It became popular, of course, as soon as we used it, but at the time we didn’t know any other Bradens.
At the time, we combined her father’s name, Brad, and my father’s name, Dennis, and liked the end result. I suppose we could combine our mothers’ names, Karen and Linda, for the new baby and come up with Kalin, Linren or Kada, but those names don’t seem to work as well as Braden did.
If we became desperate for a name, I could hold a contest and ask readers to submit suggestions. The prize simply being the honor of naming a newborn child. It’s not money, but it’s kind of cool.
Just don’t suggest Biff, Ringo, Chucky or Orson. They’re likely to get rejected.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Jul y 13, 2012.
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