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Of Google gangers and video game monikers. This is part two of a two-part post on the possible repercussions of giving your baby an unusual name. You may read part one at this link.
From Toddledredge, who calls herself a "namenik," I found out about The Baby Name Wizard, and checking out the Freakonomics blog, I discovered the wizard aka Laura Wattenberg, author of the baby name trends book The Baby Name Wizard, doesn't much care for Steven D. Levitt's work in the baby name arena. Levitt is the co-author of the book Freakonomics.
He noted in an old post Wattenberg's disapproval of his work on baby names as he pointed readers to one of her cool tools, the Baby Name Wizard Name Voyager. Levitt, whose book Freakonomics covers far more than baby names, describes the name voyager:
It let’s you type in the first letters of a name and see in a flash the rise and fall of such names by decade. The visuals are amazing. (Try typing in “MAD” and you will see the sudden rise of Madison, Madeleine, etc.) (Levitt's old post at Freakonomics blog)
I suppose it's fascinating for people still in the baby-naming business, namely young parents, and it's young parents undoubtedly that keep the name wizards and name researchers busy finding new angles on naming baby. For instance, one of the first posts I saw on baby naming today was at ParentDish.com and called "What is your baby's google ganger?" It advises parents to consider what or who is associated with your potential baby name in a Google search.
I also learned as I looked at the site that a new study's been released correlating a child's academic grade point average to his/her name. It appears someone's connected names that start with "C" and "D" with Cs and Ds and names that start with "A" or "B" with As and Bs. Now there's news you can misuse.
As odd as all that is, the following is funnier. Both my children, one of whom has a unique name and the other a traditional name, are into video games and in these games, they must choose the names of the characters they represent sometimes. Taking a cue from the many fantasy novels they read and video games they play, they rarely give their gaming characters simple names like Dave or Sue. They dub them with weirdness like Ranate or Xastara.
I never considered how video game names might influence their generation's baby name choices until I saw posts about video game baby names while researching the latest baby names in blogs. At WOW Insider, I found this entertaining read, "Don't name the baby Thrall:
I know the Warcraft universe is filled with many lovely names. If I were to suggest a subtle name for a WoW-player-to-be, I would probably lean more towards the lilting names of some of the lore's female heroines, Tyrande, Shandris, Azshara, Garona. But then again, selecting names of famous Warcraft characters might not count as "subtle." What about places within Azeroth? There are dozens of amazing names for locations that might work as baby names: Brill, Feralas, Auberdine, to name a few. It's not that easy to come up with names that don't immediately scream "I got this from my favorite video game."(WOW (World of Warcraft) Insider)
Many comments on this post were very thoughtful like this one:
vaelin said...
As with anything of a highly personal nature - be it a child's name or a tattoo - one should spend a significant amount of time considering the facets of their choice. In the end, ensure that it is meaningful and be prepared to offer a plausible explanation to those who will undoubtedly ask about something as unique.
And there were others that gifted my evening with chuckles like this one:
"Kiyokko said...
I would rather see a kid named Thrall, then see a kid named "4Real" like those screwy parents I read about tried to name their child."
Which brings me back to my beginning and naming that baby Sniper. It's unlikely the young parents considered naming the baby Sniper. They did, however, go with Cyper, the less troublesome name. Only they could explain why they favored the name Cypher. Did they pull it from The Matrix? Perhaps. My male friend is
