Hey geezers, I'm going to rant on names. Names are important. They give meaning. When you see the sign "Geezerville" you know old folks live nearby (or you are in New Zealand where geysers are called geezers). This geezer from Geezerville loves names and wonders why or how things get the names they get.
A new "village" in our Geezerville is getting started. On the village blueprints its name is Dancing Pants. Dancing Pants? You have to be joking? What were the developers thinking when they decided on Dancing Pants? I mean there are thousands of other names for a village in a geezerville in the desert, but Dancing Pants? Do you want to live in Dancing Pants, Nevada? Maybe the "P" will fall off the sign and the village will be called Dancing Ants...that does not conjure a good picture either. I have visions of folks moving to Dancing Ants and finding them. That's downright scary. Other villages in our Geezerville are named Prominence, Dusty Rose, Tortoise Ridge and Horseshoe Pass...but Dancing Pants? I'm completely confused.
When you decide on a name, it has to be "good." I posit that Dancing Pants could be better. The same goes if you are naming a little person, the name and the initials have to be good too. I had a boyfriend a hundred years ago who had the initials BM--and he had no middle name. Were his parents truly thinking? My long-ago boyfriend had many nicknames based on his initials. It was kind of funny, but gees, parents...get with it.
When I was teaching I had students with unusual names too. One year I had a little girl named "god--with a small g" as she used to say. Another year I had Sunbear. I always pictured these kids grown up, with their names written on an office door at an important institution. It made me smile. Small "g" god and Sunbear are probably retired now. I wonder how their lives have been. Did their names shape their lives? Did they change their names?
We have a friend who welcomed her first grandchild, a boy, named Clay. That's a good name. It means moldable. A baby is like a piece of clay that needs to be shaped and nurtured and turned into a productive member of society.
I have another friend named Sunny. That's a great name, yet it carries a small burden. Sunny has to be sunny all the time. It's hard to be sunny if you're not feeling sunny. What does a person named Patience feel like when she's not patient? Or Charity? Or Hope?
Names are not just for people and towns. This geezer names cars and devices too. We have a robot vacuum called Dobby, after the house elf in the Harry Potter series. We named our diesel pickup trucks Vin, after the actor. My first GPS was named Stewie...which was short for Stupid because it led it to some really stupid places. One time Stewie tried to lead us up a narrow dirt road--of course we were driving Vin and the pulling the Fiver, which were never meant to travel on narrow dirt roads. (BTW, the Fiver was the name of our fifth wheel trailer, named after Fiver in Watership Down, who was a magical rabbit--and our fifth wheel was "magical" too.)
Names have to be chosen wisely. They need to have meaning. They need to "grow" with the person or the area. Remember that not very popular movie called "Paint Your Wagon"...it took place in No Name City. Even a city without a name has a name. Then I remember a very old episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mary and her husband were explaining to their child why his middle name was Rosebud. Turns out he was named after all the important and meaningful people his mom and dad knew, and together their initials spelled Rosebud. Without the backstory, the name is embarrassing for a little boy, but once you know the backstory, the name is outstanding. Maybe Dancing Pants has a backstory, and even if I knew it, it would not be adequate.
We had neighbors who were named Chris and Chris--aka Christopher and Christine. They had 2 children and they were named Chris and Chris--aka Christian and Christal. They thought it would be cute to be the 4 Chrises but it turned out to be very confusing. My husband went to school with Sue Veneer...say that name out loud and you will "get it." I went to school with Lepra Kahn.
My mother wanted to name me Margaret and call me Peggy. My dad said no daughter of his was going to be called Peggy because it would get shortened to Peg and then to Peg Leg and that's wrong. I was not named Margaret, yet I've known several Margarets over the years and not one of them was nicknamed Peg Leg.
Names have cycles. One year I had a class of 32 children. If I said Mark, Denise and Debbie, I had the full attention of half the class. When I hear someone with those names, I know they are about 65 years old. Nowadays there are fewer Marks, Denises and Debbies and more Addisons, Nevaehs (that's heaven spelled backwards) and Liams. What will be the "in" names for the next several decades. Time will tell. In the meantime, names tell about our times. I used to look at the names on class roster. I determined that Typhani was probably going to be more interesting than her Tiffany counterpart and more challenging too.
Names tell a lot. They help determine the future. I'm sure Dancing Pants tells something, but I'm not sure what it is yet...time will tell. So geezers, when you see an unusual name, let me know. I can put it on my list and wait for something exciting, different, or weird to happen. Remember, we're all in this together.
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