WHAT'S IN A NAME?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By Any Other Name would smell as sweet;” (Romeo and Juliet, Act-II, Scene-II) Before the days of modern obstetrical ultrasound, gender reveals came at the time of delivery. Our third child got a default name because she was supposed to be a boy and was going to be named James. When she arrived without a Y chromosome, we could not agree on a girl’s name and panicked, taking her home from the hospital without a name. We learned that if we did not provide a name by one month after her delivery date, getting a name of record would involve a court hearing. We were so busy and distracted that we went right up to the deadline before choosing to name her Jamie Brooke. A baby brother showed up six years later and found an unused name waiting for him. Gender differences aside, Jamie and James were far enough apart that they avoided being confused with each other. The only issue came from insensitive people who asked us if we gave them similar names on purpose. As a urologist, I came up with several very clever responses to their thoughtless challenge, but those descriptions are not suitable for publication in the Island Park News. James and his wife are no smarter than we were. You may recall reading the Island Park News article two summers ago about the gender reveal for my youngest grandson. His stormy arrival preceded a lengthy naming process. Not wanting two men in the house with the same name, James and Carley named their new baby boy, James. Their second daughter wanted to call the new baby James Wesley, after my deceased brother-in-law. They were going to call him JW, until his rude grandfathers, both of whom had been missionaries, told them that JW and J-dub were acronyms for another competing religion whose missionaries loved to have scripture bashes with us whenever we met. It appeared to me that the new parents were struggling. I reminded them that their baby was conceived at the JW Marriot in Cabo. They could call him Cabo, or even JW if they left out the part about the competing missionaries and just told him that he was named after a hotel in Mexico. None of these ideas were greeted with enthusiasm. He is just over one year old and we still don’t know what to call him. Lately, I have been calling him “J-Dawg.” This name really fits now that he growls to himself whenever he crawls around under the furniture looking for left-over doggie treats. The best part is that If they end up calling him J-Dawg, they can tell him later on when he is older that he was named after a hot dog place in Lehi. In our church, fathers get to bless new babies during sacrament meeting and give them a name — not that they always get to choose the name that they are giving. Sam and Naomi Butikofer disagreed on the name of their 8th child. Sam wanted Shane Scott and Naomi wanted Scott Wade. The discussion started about one week before and continued until they got out of the car to go into the church. As is traditional for the ordinance, Sam stood before the congregation, with a circle of male friends and relatives and began the blessing. It went smoothly until he said, “...and the name he will be known by on the records of the church is Shane Scott….” Normally calm and quiet, Naomi stood up during the prayer, in the middle of the congregation and cried out, “No, Sam, No! His name will be Scott Wade.” And so it was that their 8th child was named Scott Wade. Sam and Naomi had two more children, both of whom were named correctly on the first try. Her children included this story in Naomi's life sketch at her funeral. Ever vigilant, RT ReplyForward