Baby Names

Don't freak out and make any impromptu assumptions. My womb still has that new car smell.

I stumbled across a website entitled "The Perfect Baby Name" and have since been obsessively thinking up and researching names for my future offspring. I don't know why; I think I'm sick. For the record, I am not interested in procreating anytime soon, I just can't get the thoughts out of my head, but I won't be visiting Baby Gap for my own bouncing bundle in the next 2-3 years, hopefully. So there.

The point is, the site made me giggle with "Only in Utah" - a list of names from a state I'm glad I have no association with (http://theperfectbabyname.com/namingcustoms/onlyinutah.html). The names include: Bucket; Canteen; Denim Levi; Dull; Hummingbird; Iron Rod; Marvelous Man; Mint; Nugget; Orange; Rube; Shag; Zanderalex for boys and Abcde (pronounced AB-sid-dee); Apathy; Hereditary; Jeopardee; Jynx; K-8; Paradise Sunrise; Placentia; Pork Chop; Seavenly; Turquoise Nova; Velvaleen; X Y Zella for girls. The article attributes these psyche-scarring baby names to the yawn-inducingly common and prevalent Mormon surnames such as Smith.

Whatever, at least the names I'm interested in are aweschum.

One of the top contenders for a girl is "Alouette." You probably know the children's song: "Alouette, gentille Alouette/Alouette, je te plumerai." It's a totally endearing song until you translate the bouncy French verse into an English ballad of pain and torture for an unwitting skylark (skylark is "Alouette" in French). However, the name conjures up wonderful childhood memories for me about a book I often read in which the main character was named "Alouette." She was a homeless street urchin who sold matchsticks in order to buy food. When she found herself freezing and alone on New Year's Eve with no food to eat, she pressed her face against a bakery window. From there my memory of the book gets kind of fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure the ensuing events of the book are actually a metaphor for her death. As a side note, when I was perhaps four I told my grandma that I was "all alone in a small, dark world." She worriedly suggested to my mother that I be psychologically evaluated until my mother explained I was just repeating a line out of that book. Good times.

Okay, so perhaps "Alouette" doesn't contain the best connotations, but it's still a kick-ass name. I also like: Quinn; Cadence; Lenore; Olivia; Fiona; Lydia; and many, many, many names I could never ever choose because my last name is now Purple (i.e., Willow; Lilly). As my former boss said, "Never go on a date with a man whose last name you can't stand because sure enough you'll fall in love and marry him." Not that I can't stand the last name Purple. It's perfectly respectable and I could care less; I'm a much more memorable person now that I have a unique name that people can actually spell. That was just a bit of advice to my single ladies out there.

Perhaps later I will post some boy names that I like, but boy names just aren't as fun to think up as girl names. Just wait and see - my house is going to end up being a sausage-fest with no daughters to speak of. Because we have a vengeful God.