The Name Game

My first name is Lex. It is rare, not unique. If you google it you will come across a few others out there, scattered across the country. Many are shortened versions of Alexander or, if a girl, Alexis. There are few, however, that are endowed with the simple, Lex.

My mother claims she just liked the name. My mother's mother, however, says I was named after Lex Barker, the B-movie actor who had a brief stint playing Tarzan. I suppose I could have a worse namesake, and sadly, I do. Mr. Barker, it seems, allegedly molested and raped Lana Turner's daughter. Gee, thanks. A good portion of my life has been spent offering the obligatory smile when, after introducing myself, the new acquaitance says laughingly, "Oh, like Lex Luthor. Seen Superman?" Ha, ha, yeah, that's fresh. And during roll call on the first day of my junior year in high school, due to an apparent typo, my homeroom teacher called me Tex, a mistake that haunted me for the remainder of the year. All in all, however, I am pleased with my name. It has allowed me to feel special with no effort on my part and I have never wondered if the person hollering my name from down the block was referring to anyone other than me.

If the enormous quantity of websites and books on the subject are any indication, the names we bestow upon our offspring are the most important prenatal choices we will confront. Considering they'll be stuck with the thing for the rest of their lives, that's a distinct possiblity. The risk of bitterness and a lifetime of psychological suffering haunt our decision making. Every possible name is put through a battery of tests for rhyming foulness, playground creativity and anagramic disasters. The Simpson's episode where Homer recounts the naming of their son featured him discarding name after name for their potentially disastrous consequences; Eddie "Spaghetti" being but one. He finally settles on, "Bart, yeah, what could go wrong with that?"

My mother's family is a fountain of cautionary tales. Her mother's given name is Floybelle, which, even when one considers the earlier time, is still unforgivable. As a result, my grandmother has spent her entire adult life known only as Mer, a shortening of Mother, which she much preferred, even as young woman, to her true name. My mom's cousin is Trellis, whose late husband was, for as long as I can remember, known as Brub, a nickname that I can only presume protected him from a given name that was worse. One can only wonder what their parents had in mind for the children when they settled on those appellations.

When I was young and my mother worked, my brother and I would spend the days being babysat by a woman with five sons of her own. Though those boys' names were not anything out of the ordinary, their alliterative quality in combination was, even at my young age, disturbing. Randy, Robbie, Ricky, Rusty and Ronnie, seemed not to notice which was probably for the best. Once you start down that road you are committed, I guess - wouldn't it have been worse as Randy, Robbie, Ricky, Rusty and Ned? The same thing showed up in my cousins; Jerome, Jarrod, Jemaine and Jacobi. I've often said it's too bad they aren't a law firm.

When we named our son we pondered, as all parents do, the infinite possibilites. Wanting to avoid the more common or popular choices, I offered my partner a variety of interesting alternatives. One morning over bagels, after several months of my curious potential monikers I offered up to her the, to my mind, delightful, "Pilot". Without looking up from her breakfast, she countered dryly, "Why don't you cut to the chase and just name the kid, "Punching Bag". That put a stop to my flights of naming fancy.

Eventually it was the beginning of the twentieth century that offered the best list of options; names that functioned well but were still surprising. We found the Social Security name site to be quite helpful, allowing us to look at the popularity of names for the past 120 years. The Baby Name Wizard offered a graphical look with which to track the rise and fall of virtually any name. We finally settled on Arlo, certain that others woud be rare. After he was born prematurely and had to spend some time in the NICU, one of the nurses there told us he was the third Arlo she had had as patient that week. We were shocked until she added that she moonlighted at a nursing home and the other two were in their 80's. Strangers when informed of his name invariably ask, quite diplomaticaly, "Uh, is that a family name?" It will, we're sure, invite some torture throughout his childhood but not much more than others. For now he seems comfortable with our choice, although I think he still needs to grow into it.

Our daughter was even more of a quandry and required substantial negotiations between her mother and myself. Late one evening halfway through the pregnancy, while my wife was working I was plodding my way through Woody Allen's, Interiors. The three daughters in the movie all had interesting names, but the middle one, played by Kristin Griffith, caught my ear. I called my wife and told her I had found the perfect name for our daughter. It took my wife a little time to hear the poetry and accept its simplicity, but by the time she gave birth it was long decided. Our little girl would be called, Flyn.

These are, after all is said and done, just names. They don't confer upon their bearers special abilities or, in most cases, substantial discrimination. They are just the things we call the people we most love. Any name we parents saddle our children with will surely bring them grief at one point or another, but they'll survive anything the world can throw at them. Well, just as long as you don't name them Bart or Floybelle.