What's in a Name?
Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”
Dear Spike — My partner, Marc, and I are expecting our first child in mid-November and we’ve been arguing for weeks on what to name him. I think we’ve finally got it narrowed down to two choices. I’m leaning toward Gabriel Corcoran Smith-Feeney. Marc wants to name him Gannon Welby Smith-Feeney. While I think they’re both strong names, Gabriel was the arch angel and our son is truly going to be an angel brought into our lives. What do you think?
— Anxious Parent-to-be
Dear Anxious — When you say “expecting our first child,” what do you mean exactly? Like that’s when the UPS truck is scheduled to show up? Because Spike isn’t getting the sense that either you or your “partner” is biologically capable of birthing this baby. These new-fangled medically engineered families are so confusing to poor Spike!
Now, Spike must admit that this is a little outside my usual area of expertise since I don’t have that biological imperative to fill the world with little clones of myself. Mind you, it’s not something I’m bitter about. After all, why would I want some little parasites suckling on my financial teet for 18 years when I could be blowing my cash on booze, smokes and hustlers? Plus there’s that whole awkward period when they come to visit you in the nursing home and spend hours greedily eyeing the heart monitor, praying for those annoying little jigs and jags to go flat so they can get their hands on your fortune. No thanks.
But to get back to your question, despite my inexperience in this area, I will do my best to help...because that’s what I do: I’m a helper.
First of all, let me ask you a question: Did Marc, by any chance, grow up watching medical dramas? If Spike’s memory serves him correctly (and it always does when he’s off his meds), Dr. Joe Gannon was the name of the character immortalized by the inimitable Chad Everett on “Medical Center,” and Welby was the last name of the character played by Robert Young on “Marcus Welby, M.D.” If Marc’s just going to pick random names from old TV shows and put them together, how about Huggy Bear Festus or Pugsly Hutch? I think those have a nice ring to them.
As for Gabriel, please give Spike a warning before saying things like “our son is truly going to be an angel brought into our lives.” If I’d wanted to vomit today I would have taken a shot of Ipecac. Now, I’m sure that your imminent bundle of joy will be an angel for you, but why settle for naming him after God’s second choice? After all, Satan was the first archangel, so why not call the wee one Beelzebub?
Okay, you want some real advice? How about John or Steve or Mike, or something else that doesn’t sound like a furniture collection from Pottery Barn? Because the chances are that your son will never be the Prime Minister of England, so he doesn’t need to be named like one. The way Spike sees it, if you saddle your little blob with a self-important name you’re just asking for trouble, because he’s going to grow up with a grandiose sense of his own importance, and before long you and Marc will be bowing and scraping as you serve him his Zwibeks and pate on a silver tray. And the fact is, no matter what you name him, if he’s a Eugene at heart he’s going to grow up to be a Eugene, and if you’ve named him Cameron Masterson Leviticus it’s only going to make the disparity between the name and the reality more obvious, inviting ridicule and playground beatings. At least if he’s named Joey he might be able to fly under the radar.
Oh, and while we’re talking names, Spike declares that white parents can no longer make fun of black parents for making up names like Anfernee and DeShaniqua for their kids. Gwyneth Paltrow fucked that up for all the white people.
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
