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A rose by any other name
Oct. 28th, 2010 10:58 amThere was a piece in the paper this morning about the annual survey of most popular names for new babies in the UK, and how 'Mohammed' (in a massive variety of spellings' is now the most popular name for newborn boys. Now, this has led to some of the usual concerns about how Muslims are conquering the world, but all it says to me is that Islam isn't the world's most imaginative religion*, especially when it comes to names - I mean, Christianity gives almost a dozen from the disciples alone. I can't see 7,300 new Mohammeds tipping the demographics one way or another, to be honest.
More interesting to me are the names towards the bottom of the list, and what they say about the parents. Fourteen babies were unlucky enough to have parents so spectacularly dim they named the child 'Baby', and a similar number decided to curse their newborn with the name 'Gordon'. I'm not sure which is worse, as they imply a similar degree of mental acuity.
Moreover, it turns out that fewer people agree with Nick than was first assumed as that's the 1214th most popular name, compared to Cameron, 52nd.
But it's the bottom of the list which is the most entertaining (or depressing, depending on how you look at it). Terry Pratchett once wrote of a family who believed you could rise in society based on the names your children had, so they called all their kids things like King, Lord and Baron - and so here we find one boy called King and two called Lord, which I'm sure will come true later in life. Displaying a serious lack of interest in whether their child gets bullied at school, three sets of parents called their child Osama, and another fourteen thought that Harlem or Diesel would make ideal names for the gurgling budle of joy which they'd just spawned.
I ask you, what sort of person looks at a baby and thinks Diesel is a name which will set them up nicely for life? Or Harsh, which was similarly popular?
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raggedhalo once suggested, with a perfectly straight face (which was more than I managed to keep), that children should be taken from their parents at birth and raised by the state as that would be fair.
I dunno about fair, but in some cases it would be almost certainly be kinder if the parents were at least prevented from doing the naming.
*An accolade which probably goes to Scientology as a spectacular work of fiction, or maybe the Ordo Templii Orientis whose liturgy seeks to turn it's adherents into gods through the medium of booze, sweeties and naked ladies**.
**This has never worked, but it's not short of people who keep turning up for another try.
More interesting to me are the names towards the bottom of the list, and what they say about the parents. Fourteen babies were unlucky enough to have parents so spectacularly dim they named the child 'Baby', and a similar number decided to curse their newborn with the name 'Gordon'. I'm not sure which is worse, as they imply a similar degree of mental acuity.
Moreover, it turns out that fewer people agree with Nick than was first assumed as that's the 1214th most popular name, compared to Cameron, 52nd.
But it's the bottom of the list which is the most entertaining (or depressing, depending on how you look at it). Terry Pratchett once wrote of a family who believed you could rise in society based on the names your children had, so they called all their kids things like King, Lord and Baron - and so here we find one boy called King and two called Lord, which I'm sure will come true later in life. Displaying a serious lack of interest in whether their child gets bullied at school, three sets of parents called their child Osama, and another fourteen thought that Harlem or Diesel would make ideal names for the gurgling budle of joy which they'd just spawned.
I ask you, what sort of person looks at a baby and thinks Diesel is a name which will set them up nicely for life? Or Harsh, which was similarly popular?
raggedhalo once suggested, with a perfectly straight face (which was more than I managed to keep), that children should be taken from their parents at birth and raised by the state as that would be fair. I dunno about fair, but in some cases it would be almost certainly be kinder if the parents were at least prevented from doing the naming.
*An accolade which probably goes to Scientology as a spectacular work of fiction, or maybe the Ordo Templii Orientis whose liturgy seeks to turn it's adherents into gods through the medium of booze, sweeties and naked ladies**.
**This has never worked, but it's not short of people who keep turning up for another try.
