A Letter to Expecting Parents From Your Future Child, Name (Hopefully) [Redacted]

Dear Parent 1 and 2 (for the love of hyphens there better not be a third),

You have successfully flopped your steamer in the gene pool. Congrats. You may already be thinking about the critical parenting decisions that await you.

Dummy or no dummy?

Private school or home school?

Which bedtime story character should we convince her lives in the sky, knows more than google, and has a predilection for animal sacrifice, genocide and determining the results of local football matches?

Nah. Don’t stress the small shit. The most important parenting decision you will ever make comes moments before or after I arrive. I’m talking about the legal name you bestow me. If you mess this up, I will be destined to live as a C-grade TikTokker in an Amazon locker.

And I will hate you. Forever.

If you were just about to add an extra ‘A’ to Aaron, put your pen down and read this before it’s too late.

Your great aunt Winnifred may well have been a lovely lady. Likewise, all reports say your great, great grandfather thrice removed — Withycombe The Peasant Slayer — was a splendid chap.

But their names are shit. And they’re probably not as lovely as you think. Most people from previous generations were terrible parents and/or racist, so if that’s something you want me associated with, go right ahead.

I get it. You like west coast hip-hop and pro basketball. You think your Nepalese cleaner is the most beautiful woman this side of the Himalayas.

Celebrating cultural diversity is a wonderful cause. But you can appreciate other cultures without needing to show them off like an infant Gucci handbag.

If you already have a double hyphenated last name, belong to a polo club where the staff are still considered ‘the help’, and are expecting a fair haired, translucent little boy, calling me Charvarius may be considered a little off colour.

If you really want a ‘different’ sounding name, have you considered procreating with someone outside your cultural background?

This is great advice not just for baby naming, but life in general. Have you heard the saying:

‘Happy wife, happy life?’

Well, there’s also:

‘Don’t call your son Adolf when your wife wanted Abraham unless you want to be re-circumcised.’

Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their little girl ‘Apple’?

Or when Frank and Gail Zappa called their firstborn ‘Moon Unit’?

Or when Elon Musk named his eighth (of twelve, and counting) child after the periodic table?

Did you know xenon is a noble gas? And that it has the longest half-life known to science? That’s right, that poor boy is named after a royal fart — he will stink forever. Please leave your chemistry in the bedroom.

Apparently this is a trend.

Kitty. Hawk. Bacon.

All great. If you want your child to be eaten alive.

I get it. It’s your spirit animal. You want the name to have meaning. Connection.

But there is no sane reason for naming me ‘Fairy Penguin’. (Apart from future ambitions of me being cast as a villain in the recently modernised LGBTQ-friendly yet still politically incorrect DC universe.)

I’m all for breaking down the barriers and conservative traditions that have limited names for so long. Tom, Dick and Harry are now Taylor, Dylan and Harley, and they may or may not have Richards. Love it.

But please, just like Uncle Wiv, who after fourteen shandies decided to invest his life savings in an electronic comb business, don’t get carried away. While you might think yourself a gender wars hero, calling your daughter Boris, or your son Malibu Barbie is akin to sacrificing them to a vicious, spiteful god.

Sometimes you lot are so obsessed with the perfect first name you fail to consider that we are all interconnected. During kindergarten roll call, the connection between first and last names is the most important connection kids make.

If your last name is Cyst (a little unfortunate already, I must admit), don’t call me Ray, Faz, or Mallee Gnant.

Bonus tip: Remember initials matter too.

If your last name is Niss, please do not name me anything starting with A or P.

Likewise, if your last name is Sole, don’t choose a name starting with R. (Or name me after the guitarist from the ABBA tribute band who played at Withycombe Jr’s memorial, Bjorn Wivouta.)

You get the picture. If not now, you will when the other kids start drawing them.

Have you ever been to an op shop? They’re filled with millennial hipsters trying on dead people’s clothes, each searching frantically for the oldest courderoy trouser or diamonte brooch.

Now imagine what happens when those hipsters slip out of their pants and breech each other’s brooch holes?

That’s right, a little squadron of infant Esme’s, Dorothy’s and Gatsby’s will invade a childcare near you.

If that’s your flavour, go for it. Forget baby name books, just wander into a nursing home and find the wrinkliest looking customer you can. Ask them (or the nurse in charge) their name, and reassure them that reincarnation is alive and well.

But some parents are already calling Dorothy new age trash, and are searching further and further back.

Before you know it, Gatsby’s daycare is going to be overrun with Neanderthals, Ardipithicus’s and Prokaryotes.

Please, for the love of non-religious creation theories, don’t call me Big-Bang Betty or I’ll shrink your universe so fast you may as well have called me God.

With two D’s.

All my posts are free to read, but if you would like to financially contribute to my name changing fund, you can do so at the following rates:

$1 per month
$2 per month
$3 per month
$4 per month
$5 per month (Full price! Thanks to your generosity, your future children will all be as splendid as Withycombe The Peasant Slayer.)