There is a time-honored tradition of all seasoned parents. It is our job to provide useful ‘advice’ to them until they run to the hills.

And so ever since my really sweet and good co-workers Vivian and Ryan announced that they were going to have their first child, I, like every other co-worker, immediately went into overdrive.  I believe that they are now hiding under their respective desks, even though it is late in the evening and I’m long gone for the day.

In any case, this afternoon I went by and saw Vivian sitting at her desk with a party decoration for a boy. And, yes, she did confirm for me that she is having a boy. “No Name” boy, is precisely what she told me.

And so it is now my job to reflect on what to name their child; clearly having survived the experience with my own child (who is hiding under her desk still) I have mastered this skill.

First of all, “No Name” is a heck of a name, and I am all for it.  I mean, just imagine the kid sitting at the DMV and they ask:

“What name goes on your new driver’s license?”

“No Name”.

“Um, excuse me, but we need your name.”

“Right, it’s ‘No Name’”.

“Um…. SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

As you can see, this is for his safety. He’ll never be killed in a car crash because he’ll never be able to drive.  Or board an airplane (but, and I cannot speak for you, this would be such fun to do to TSA). Or pay taxes.  Or get Social Security.

You’ll notice that I did not include “get a job”.  In corporate America, names are not needed for jobs.  Once you are hired, you become an “associate” or a “resource”, or, follow me here, “Larry” – all of which are useful titles for drones, but not for actual people.

There is a downside for the parents, I realize. Every problem that the world has will somehow be seen as your son’s.  For example:

School:  “Your son No Name is truant again.”

Son – “Really, Mom, that’s not true – I was there every single day at every single class.”

You (to school):  “OK, what class did he miss?”

School:  “3^rd period calculus.”

You:  “But he’s not in calculus.”

School:  “Oh, that’s right – it came in with no name, so I simply assumed it was your son No Name.  We’ll clear this right up.”

You:  “Fine, fine – talk to you tomorrow.”

Now a variation on this is the name “No Middle Name”.  That’s perfect – just ask my wife, who has no middle name. That’s absolutely the truth.  Her first birth certificate was “Mary Elizabeth” (first and middle), and her mom had them change it to “Maryelizabeth” with No Middle Name.  To this day no one actually knows who she is – we get mail for Mary, Liz, Elizabeth, MaryE, all sorts of names.  Lizzy hasn’t paid a bill in 19 years.

Of course, the problem with the “no name” approach is that it is so generic and so well used these days.  I get hundreds of pieces of mail for this person named “Resident” and his wife “Occupant”.  I don’t know them personally, but I do deduct them as dependents on my tax return (so does Donald Trump).

So, perhaps their first instinct is not the correct one to use.  There are many other possibilities, and I will provide some useful guidelines here.

Names that are guaranteed for your child’s success: 

No, I am not suggesting that you name your child Captain America (Thor, yes, but Captain America, no). But there is a simple naming convention that guarantees that you child will be a success someday.  For that you must turn to powerful blue-blood sounding names.

This means that his first name must be an initial.  For example:   W. Michael Blueblood – or “Mike” to the world and “Sparky” to his friends. It is important that any such a person have a ridiculous nickname, as otherwise he would simply be pretentious, even though we all KNOW that this is the truth.  (I once went to a UC Berkley meeting with the Dean, and as a new student was “Skippy Topsider”.  And the best part – the dean called me “Skippy” and my girlfriend “Muffy”. )

Bear in mind, this is also true of Royalty:   Prince Roger Nelson (‘Rog’ to those who knew him), which became the basis of Michael Jackson naming his kid “Prince as well”. 

There is historical precedence to this, as I learned last summer.  In Scottish history, one of the most important historical figures (by which I mean they have statues of him everywhere) is Robert “The Bruce”.    Now, if you are in an opposing army and “The Bruce” is coming down on you, you’d better run away. 

Another variation on royalty is to give a numeral to your kid – For example,   Henry VIII Beck.  This shows royalty, but if you actually misspell it as Hank “V-8” Beck the kid’s going to become a NASCAR driver and wear ridiculous jump-suits that say “Bud Lime” on them. We hope that you raise your kid better than that – drinking Bud Lime is a crime under the Geneva Convention, not to mention that it is in poor taste.

In any case, if you choose to go this route, you must do so with care.  I had a brother-in-law, and his real name was “W. Junior Welshrarebit”.  And, yes, he went by “Junior”.  And, Yes, he was not a “Junior”.  So late in life he started going by “JR”, but then everyone thought he was in the show “Dallas” from the 1970’s.

Names that make you look like some sort of literate snot:

Given that his Given Name will be “Beck”, you could name the kid John Stein, and thus go the route of the famous author John Stein Beck.  As in – “My parents never read John Steinbeck”.

Or, in a vague attempt to hide your pretentiousness, you could name him “Stein Beck” and skip the John altogether. You get to tell your friends that you love Steinbeck (he wrote books, you think), but of course didn’t want to make it that obvious because you were so clever and all.   But here you run the problem of them now reversing the name into “BeckStein”, the famous accountant from Schenectady, NY.

Now, you may think that this is sounds like something you would never do, as you are CERTAINLY NOT some sort of evil snob. But I know these parents, and they are huge Bronco’s fans, so if I see the name “J. Elway Beck” I will know. 

Naming after Dead Relatives:

This is the Jewish tradition, or so I am told, as this is the way we named our daughter (“Miss M”). 

It certainly takes the guesswork out of the naming process.  What this means is that you will have children named “John” or “James” or “Scott”. 

What you really need is a relative that combines different cultures.  For example

“Well, we named him ‘Psy’ after my husband’s Jewish Uncle Sy, but we used the Canadian spelling.”

And then we thought ‘Cho’ after my wife’s Chinese heritage.”

“Wait… you named your kid ‘Psycho’?  Isn’t that they guy who did ‘Gangnam Style’?”

“Why, yes, it is.”

The Orange County Tradition: What is Last is now First

This one I owe to my wife, who noticed that most OC moms use a Last Name as the First Name. Surly surnames, that’s the ticket!

So, you could name your boy a name like Clancy, Cruz, Coleman, Patterson, or something like that.  Heck, combine that with the President George “W” Bush and you could get something like “W. Clancy Stein-Beck”,  something that is, all at the same time snobby, literate (by which I mean snobby) and appropriate for Newport Beach (and, need I say, snobby).

Naming your child after nothing at all:

Don’t disregard something so silly that it casts doubt on your mental capacity to function as adults.  After all, you are becoming parents so you clearly are not sane.  Trust me on this.

But there is an advantage.  In today’s society your entire history can be searched.  Employers do a name search to see what types of “bad stuff” you have done. Long ago I did a study of what names are/are not good on Google, and I will present a recap of here.

For example, say you named your kid “Jim Smith”.   Well, if you put this into Google Images, you will be shocked what types of criminals come up.

But if you try “Moon Unit 2” you’ll come up with just one person, and the right one.  You have mathematically eliminated all the other Moon Units from contention, and employers will gladly line up to hire your child at an exorbitant wage just out of college.

And if you think that this process is done, I give you one simple retort:  North West.  This poor child will never ever ever know which way she is going.  And I hope (oh, I so do hope) that someday she has a child that she names “North Junior” –  that way we can have “North by North West”  (ok, I suppose pulling out a Hitchcock reference is a very literate, by which I mean snobby, thing to do).

What will you Really call your child?

Regardless what you name your child, you will never ever, not in a million Taylor Swift songs, call him by his real name, unless he is in trouble:

“No Middle Name you come right down here now and explain why the dog has been shaved. Did you get into my Nair again?”

No, you will have a special nickname for your kid.  My daughter was:  Small Fry, Little Missy, Miss M, and half a dozen other names that I can’t recall.   Now, although she is 17, applying for college, driving a car, and doing everything short of paying taxes:  “Little Girl”.  [Editor’s Note: As of this posting, she is now 23, on her own and paying taxes. See my post I Blinked]

And she was named after my grandmother Mollie, and my wife’s father Louis.  These are not common names, and no one will ever spell her name correctly, and I absolutely do not care.  She is on her own.

Why?  My grandmother called me “Leiben”, which I was told meant “love of my life” in Yiddish, but which Google tells me is German.   True or false – who cares – I’ll keep that memory. She was a character that one.

And my Grandfather – well to him I was always Isaac or Arthur, or a half a dozen other names that came to him, all of which meant “get me a beer”. Which, when I was finally 21, I did.

So, here’s the deal – I would give just about everything I own, including my child, to have them back calling me whatever the heck they wanted to. 

And for my daughter – all of the names I call her aren’t just for the heck of it. Because the moment they placed her into my arms, she was Mollie, she was beautiful, and the name absolutely was hers forever.

As will be your son, No Name. And that, my friends, is what is in a name.