2239. What’s in a name?

When Mr and Mrs Flowers had their first baby they thought it would be cute to name their daughter after flowers. They called her Rose Violet Flowers. The second child was also a girl, so they named her Iris Holly Flowers. Three further daughters followed. To be consistent they stuck to the flora. There was Myrtle Cherry Flowers, Poppy Jasmine Flowers, and Lily Daisy Flowers.

When Mrs Flowers was expecting her sixth – “This is definitely going to be the last” – she hoped for a boy. And a boy it was! They named him Rock because it was a good strong masculine name and offset a little the perceived femininity of the surname. He had no middle name; just good solid Rock.

Needless to say, the plot didn’t work. He was known at school as Pansy Flowers and he hated it. Others taunted him with Rock-a-bye-baby Flowers. On the day he turned eighteen he officially changed his name to Jack Gunn. After that he didn’t know who the heck he was and went around bullying everyone. He twice got sacked from work and was going to do himself in. That’s when he met Annie.

In the end Annie got her Gunn. They named their three boys Top, Hand, and Six.

1913. Lovey

Bradley’s father had always shortened Bradley’s name to Brad, but some of his friends called him Wolfie. No one seemed to remember how the name of Wolfie originated. Bradley’s wife called him Hector, and no one knew why for that either.

Wolfie’s wife’s name was Cassandra, although her parents had always called her Cassie. Her nickname was Sugarlips, and Hector called her Sandy which was short for Sandwich because once at work Brad had forgotten to bring his wallet and his lunch and Sugarlips had shared a sandwich. That was how Cassie and Wolfie met.

Anyone not familiar with this family would think that there were six or seven people, but there were only two – Brad and Cassie. Wolfie and Sandy had wanted to start a family but with little success.

“It appears there’s no hope,” said Sugarlips to Hector. So Bradley and Cassandra took themselves off to the clinic. Before you knew it, Sandy was “in the family way”, and as often happens it was a multiple birth: triplets. Cassie and Wolfie had spent hours talking about what names to give them. They didn’t want multiplicity of nomenclature such as they had because it was sometimes confusing, so Bradley and Cassandra named them simply Jack, Bill, and Pete.

It was not a good plan because they were all girls. “We wanted it to be a surprise,” explained Wolfie. “And it was a surprise. We were utterly convinced we were having all boys.”

It was resolved simply enough. Jack was known as Trina, Bill was known as Judith, and Pete was known as Danielle. Although friends called them Trev One, Trev Two, and Trev Three (in that order) and no one knew why.

Their paternal grandmother called all three Lovey. In fact she called everyone in the world Lovey. It was a lot easier that way.

1437. Naming the baby

Choosing a name for the baby is almost impossible these days. It’s a boy and I have been going through lists on the internet and everywhere else.

At first I thought of something simple like John, with no middle name. Just plain John. Then I thought that some people would start calling him Jack, and even though I like John I don’t like Jack.

I also thought of James. But James sounds a bit snooty and upper class. I like Jim but some people would think it stood for James.

It’s the transmutation of names that bugs me. For example, Bartholomew would get shortened to Bart. Michael would get shortened to Mick or Mike. Richard becomes Dick, Anthony becomes Tony, Bernard becomes Barney. The only way around all this would be to go for something unusual, so that’s where I started looking.

So I considered Zenith and Steinway and Fahrenheit. In the end I settled on Caligula. For a few days and then I changed my mind. Perhaps Reginúlfr. What do you think?

Help! I keep changing my mind. I know I have to decide. He starts school on Monday.