Naming your child is

a serious business. It should be taken seriously. 

Do parents have any idea how much power they have been given when they are given the right to name their child? I doubt it even occurs to most parents. They simply choose names because they "like" them or "it sounds nice" or they admire someone.  They spell common names in uncommon ways in an attempt to make a name "different" even when they are unwilling to branch out and give the child a less common but still recognisable name.

There was a story floating around the internet yesterday about a journalist who, just to see if it would slip through the net, named her child "Amphetamine Rules". If it had not slipped through the net there would not have been a story at all - but it did. The child's birth certificate actually shows the child's given names as just that. Now there has been all the fuss and bother of changing the child's name(s) to the intended.  

It should not have happened. The Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in that state has "tightened"procedures. Will that stop parents from doing foolish things? Probably not. History is littered with children who have been given names they should not have been given.

The Principal of the teacher training establishment the Senior Cat trained at during WWII was a man called "Adolf Schulz". It was a very unfortunate name at the time of course but it continued to be a name parents did not give their children, even as a second given name. There were families where the name "Adolf" had been in the family for generations but it still wasn't used. I know just one person given that name. It was his second given name and he never used it, not even the initial. The only reason I know what it was is because he needed to show me his full name on a legal document. 

"Please don't tell anyone Cat!" he told me anxiously. 

I suggested he could legally change his second name. He looked at me in stunned disbelief and I sent him off to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages to find out if it could be done.  (Yes, it was.) 

I once knew a man who was called Sean at birth. It is a perfectly good Irish name. In Ireland people would call him "Shane" but in Downunder it is usually pronounced "shorn". That's fine - unless your surname happens to be Lamb. The problem was pointed out to his parents but they insisted. He went through school being teased unmercifully. On the day he reached legal adulthood he changed his name. His parents, who had hoped for a considerable inheritance from the maternal uncle they named him after, did not receive anything. They lost a son instead. It's an extreme case but it happens. 

The names in our family are common enough. I don't use them here. I try not to identify anyone here. I can say my brother was given a third name that has run in the family for generations. It is obviously a surname and he is pleased it was passed on to him but he would not have wanted it as a given name. 

I have worked with people from all over the world. Naming practices in other countries can be very different but there is always thought to be given to names. Think about it "Justin Case" you do something which embarrasses the child. (And yes, Mr Case was given his name!)