More on the Boards!

The message boards at babynames.com get my ire once again. I know I should branch out to other places, but this is such a rich source of mockability that I can’t quit it.

Caitlin asks if John David is too common and normal to fit in with her ‘sibset’ (god I hate this terminology)? Yes it is. Also, you named one of your children ‘Moa’? What, was ‘Elephant Bird’ too common and normal?

Cokabean asks about a few names. Let’s go at them in order!
-Malia = I am trying to copy off of the president. Get some originality (and I don’t like it anyways).
-Mariah = Like Mariah Carey. Too attached to a famous person (and I don’t like it anyways).
-Maribel = Sounds like Mary Bell, but with a trying to be different spelling. This isn’t an offensively bad name, but a “trying to hard to be different in the suburbs” bad name.
-Maricela = There are a bunch of ways you could pronounce that, and any of them scream ‘trying to hard’.
-Mariella = Hmmmm, I see a pattern here. While this name still strikes me as trying too hard (it is obvious you are trying too hard to fit something with a ‘Mar-‘ beginning), this one ain’t the worst of them. I’d pick this one, or go back and try to not try too hard.

Saudade asks about Shoshannah. If you are Jewish, sure, though I associate it with the whole Jerry Seinfeld thing from years back (that probably won’t matter for her generation though). If you aren’t Jewish, that would be like being some Midwestern white chick being named Juanita (see previous rules).

blue_eyed asks about Autumn, and if it goes with Caspian and Fleur. Oh, jusus fucking Christ, you are one of those horrible naming people. This isn’t a freaking piece of fan fiction here! Let me guess, you are a fan of Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia? Autumn, oddly, is the least crappiest of those names, but still sucks as a first name. You are trying to be clever, but you fail.

SummerRain asks about the name Tristan. Hmmm, this is a difficult one. If Tristan is a rare name, than I think it works because it is strong, nice sounding, based in mythology, and sounds like a name. BUT…..it sounds like a trendy name that the stupid suburbanite housewives would love, so you have to be wary of it turning into Aiden or Isabella. Let’s look at the data to see….wow, it shot out of nowhere to be relatively popular in the mid-1990s and has been hovering in the 80s recently. I don’t have a problem, per se, with the name, but fear that it will be dated and trendy. Nice try though!

lindz1083 asks about Georgia or Savannah. Oh, wait, I have better options! How about Atlanta or Augusta or Macon or Athens or….

BashfulBean asks about Jesper Charles and Felix, which would go along with their current kids of Atticus Noah, Milo Theodore, and Severus Grant. Apparently they are going to start a minstrel show with their kids.

Mom2CoriWes asks about the names Brennan and Nolyn for a girl. Most of the time these boards are mutual masturbation of name appreciation where everyone says ‘I like it!’ or some other empty platitude without any real insight or critical though. Not this time, however, as people rightly see this attempt at forcing obvious boy names onto a girl. It is sad when even babynames message board people will look down on your name. Also, Nolyn has the stupid ‘replace any vowel with Y!’ rule going, so it automatically sucks.

Alexis2519 asks what people think of Alba. That is such a white name.

cokabean (again!) asks about the name Donna. That name is the definition of ‘woman’ to me.

princesskmw asks about the name Ivy. Ivy is the worst fucking plant that has ever been planted, and to name a child after such a horrid, horrible, evil fucking plant that damages fences, yards, and bricks (!) and is impossible to get rid of is bad. Bad.

Mazy asks about the names Aurelia and Beatrix for sisters. Put the Harry Potter down (and realize that Beatrix is a fucking ugly name).

winter asks about the name Poet. I’d go with Novelist, Playwright, Lyricist, or Speech Writer.

2matsigirl38 asks about the name Paisley. Seriously? Fucking horrible name in which the child will be (rightfully) mocked about her whole life.

cokabean (Jesus Christ, yet again?) asks about Carlo and Mariposa. Carlo, standard name and all, whatever. Mariposa is Spanish for Butterfly, but also slang for a gay man. Luckily someone links to this quickly, but adds ‘it’s very pretty though’. No, you cannot name a someone that, even if it is a girl. You wouldn’t name a girl ‘Faggot’ in English, and you wouldn’t name a girl Mariposa in Spanish.

2matsigirl38 (again!) asks about Emma. I know, I do this on purpose because I like to end when someone has to sign onto a message board (and pay money) to ask strangers opinions about THE MOST POPULAR FUCKING NAME FOR A GIRL FROM LAST YEAR.

Randomly Chosen Names, part 2

You know the drill from below, I use dice to randomly select two boys and two girls names from the top 1000 names from last year that I must use if I have a child (they supersede yesterdays choices). Then I do the same for a friend of mine with the last name Johnson. Here goes!

Nametard Choices:
Boy
- 671 Jamie
- 308 Ronald
Girl
- 53 Kaitlyn
- 519 Caylee

Lots to work with here! Jamie as a boys name? As a nickname for James or Jamison, but as a name itself? No way, sounds bad and androgynous. Ronald? Old school baby boomer name (see my post on this), and will be called Ron Weasley by kids all growing up.

Now the girls are interesting names because they suck. Kaitlyn is Caitlin with the 'K replaces all C's' and 'Y replace a vowel' rules for making crappy fantasy names. I think I've railed on alternative spellings that are contrived many times already, so I'll leave it for now, but obvious fail. Caylee? Like Cay Lee? Sounds like a nickname or something someone would be named in a southern trailer park, WAIT, isn't it the name of the little girl who was murdered that Fox news won't stop talking about? That'll be an end to THAT discussion.

The fates were unkind to me today.

Now for the Johnson family's choices:
Boy:
- 535 Felipe Johnson
- 223 Marco Johnson
Girl:
- 516 Quinn Johnson
- 954 Azaria Johnson

Lots of fun here! Felipe Johnson is a bit mismatched ethnicity, but sort of fun I have to admit. Marco Johnson doesn't quite flow, but isn't shameful. Quinn? For a girl? No. Azaria Johnson, obviously named after Helen Hunt's ex-husband, sounds contrived. Win for boys, fail for girls in this. Felipe Johnson actually grows on me.... Hell, let's give Felipe a middle name.... rolled 456, so....
Felipe Kelvin Johnson
Hey, not bad!

Randomly Chosen Names, pt 1

Ok, so I've decided that I will let FATE decide on whatever name I will pick if I ever have another child. What the heck, it might be twins so I'll pick two names. I will choose among the top 1000 names from last year and cast my lot with a d1000 (that would be a 1000 sided die, but I'll just use 3 10-siders, one for thousands, hundreds, and tens respectively, with 000 being 1000. Basic DnD stuff (not Basic DnD, but basic DnD)). I'll do it twice for each sex. So, what do the fates demand of me for naming?
Boys:
-238: Rafael
-869: Ean

Girls:
-320: Cameron
-651: Tiana

Hmmm....let's look at this one at a time. Rafael? Yeah, Ninja Turtle, painter and all, but I sort of like it! Granted, it is probably on here because of the Hispanic population of the US, but my Italian ancestry allows me to claim it. Ean? Yuck, alternative spelling of Ian that looks bad. Let's hope I don't have two boys, damn you fates!

Cameron? Oh, god, let's hope I DO have two boys so I don't have to name my daughter this. Cameron is a crappy horrible name for a girl because, first of all, I just don't like it, plus it is a boys name, a boys name that translates into something like 'broken nose', and she'll be called Cammy, which sucks. Tiana? Sounds made up, not in a good way.

1 for 4, and that is a generous one at that. We'll try again tomorrow and see what we get.

Oh, this was too fun, I'll roll another set for a friend of mine in case he ever has another kid (don't do it!), and this way we'll see how it sounds with the last name:

Boys:
-818
-614

Girls:
-787
-682

Wow, I won't look at the name just yet, but those are some high numbers, ensuring some weird ass sounding names (maybe). Let's see what the fates have chosen:
Boys: Finley Johnson or Blaine Johnson
Girls: Brisa Johnson or Zaria Johnson

Hey, that wasn't as bad as my choice! The boys names are meh, and while I think Brisa sound forced and fake, I actually like Zaria Johnson.

How to do Quick Name Choices

Ok, I’ve been thinking about what would be a good name to choose if you had no ideas going in. Let’s say that I was given 15 minutes to come up with a name for a newborn child, how would I go about this? I say this because an astounding number of people really have no idea what they are going to name their child when it is born, and feel pressured to come up with a name right away.

Would I just choose a common name? No way, not for me. But, if I only had a few minutes to think about it, then I wouldn’t have time to think of the ramifications of the name. So rare or unusual names would be out too. I would have to choose a common, but not too common, name that would acceptable to the child for their whole life.

I’ll bet that if you looked at the lower half of the top 100 names, you would find plenty of suitable names like that. Just take any group of 10 and choose your favorite from their. Let’s see if that’ll work.

Since I am a more ‘rarer name’ kind of guy, I’ll choose from between 91-100 (I haven’t looked yet, I swear). Lets rate the boys and girls names I can choose from:
-Ayden (alternative spelling with ‘replace with y’ rule of trendy name, no thank you)
-Cooper (ok name, I guess, but depends on last name)
-Dominic (that’s ok)
-Brady (reminds me too much of Tom Brady, and sounds too gay)
-Caden (don’t like it, sounds forced and fake)
-Josiah (ugh, too old-school Biblical, which I guess some people like)
-Kyle (that’s ok, standard name)
-Colton (see Caden above)
-Kaden (uggggghhh)
-Eli (no thank you at all)

That’s three passable names for males (passable, but not anything I particularly like) with Josiah being a fourth if you are ok with that type of name. Girls?

-Faith (I don’t like the ‘virtue names’, but it is ok I guess…)
-Sara (fine)
-Isabelle (would say know because of the reams of Isabellas out there now)
-Caroline (fine)
-Genesis (oh my god, that is such a stupid fucking name. Sometimes people are idiots. Top 100, really?)
-Isabel (see Isabelle)
-Mary (Old school, too old school for me, but still fine I guess)
-Zoey (one of the alternatives of Zoe, which is getting relatively popular, but still fine)
-Gracie (idiot people, their daughter won’t be three forever, that’ll be a no)
-Megan (fine)

That’s six passable names. Hmmmm….not bad.

So, when in doubt, just look at a certain subset of the top baby names and pick from there. I’m still not happy with the choices, but they are better than the top 10 names.

Pretending to be Clever?

I figure there are two types of namers out there: those that try to be clever and those that shun all things clever. Unfortunately we are talking about people (and people are idiots), so things usually turn out badly with either category. I think the best way to describe this is using an analogy with clothes.

People who try to be clever will often go out of their way to advertise how clever and unique they truly are, and the result is garish colors, scarves, and leggings that are accented with ‘ironic’ ‘vintage’ t-shirts and plastic glasses. We all know those people. They want you to see them as ‘being themselves’ when in reality it is contrived.

Contrast that with people who wear beige chinos and light blue shirts. Yeah, sure there is nothing particularly wrong with that outfit, and it is a mainstay for a reason, but no one thinks ‘I really like the way this looks!’

Yeah, I’m probably stretching the word ‘clever’, but you get the points. And don’t complain that ‘there are many gradations between those extremes’ because no shit! Now let’s get back to names.

Non-clever people aren’t necessarily the only ones naming their kids things like Michael and Ashley, but instead are the ones that think “I really like that names!” and then go on and ask other people opinions about it. One of the things that always pops up on the naming message boards is people asking others’ opinions of a super-common name. It is these non-clever people who do this; it isn’t so much that the name is bland or boring, but they need to make sure others think so too.

And, you know what? It isn’t bad at all that people name their kids boring names that have been the staples of naming for hundreds of years. Michael and David have been popular forever for a reason; they are good names. Sure, girls names go through trends, but Sarah and Elizabeth will stand the test of time. Now, I probably wouldn’t pick those names myself, but I have no problem with them. Why?

The reason why is that when people shy away from those name to try for something ‘clever’ they usually fail, and failure is bad when it is something that will be latched to a child for their entire life. But if you are a clever person in some area of your life, you often do not want to have a boring name for your child, so what are you to do? Luckily, you’ve been reading this blog, so you have some sensibility, but I’ll give you more by making some rules.

RULES FOR THE WANNABE CLEVER NAME GIVER

-It has to sound like a name. Any name that you give your child has to actually sound believably like a real name, even if you just made it up. This can be tricky because it is highly dependent on the culture you are in, because while a name may sound ridiculous to me in America, it may fit right in with other cultures (for example, the many incredibly short, one syllable names in China). It is like the classic Seinfeld where George’s idea for the name Seven was stolen, and he was trying to convince the couple to use the name Soda. Seven sounds like a name, but Soda? Not so much. Use your better judgment (though if you are reading this, that has already failed you).

-Do not name a child a name that is strongly associated with a character from a book/movie/play/etc. This is definitely NOT CLEVER. That means no Trinity, Indiana, Isabella Swan, or Frodo.

-Do not use fake alternative spellings. If you name your kid something that I would make fun of in a fantasy novel (see previous post), then it wasn’t clever but instead was stupid. Changing vowels to ‘y’ (Megyn), switching places of letters (Kellye), changing an ‘a’ or an ‘i’ to an ‘e’ (Megen, Kelle), adding an extraneous ‘h’ (Khelly), doubling letters that don’t need doubling (Megann), dropping a doubled letter (Kely), etc. etc. etc. These things do not do anything to the name except make it always misspelled. I don’t to hear that your grandmother was named that or any crap like that either.

-Do not make a cutesy name. That includes making a nickname a first name or having a name that sounds good as a kid but not as an adult. I’m looking at you Cory!

-Don’t use a trendy name that won’t last. Some trends are trends that’ll stay, like the loss of the first name Adolf or the rise of the name Jennifer. But some are obvious trends that will date your kid and sound stupid. Madison, Addison, and Makayla are obvious ones. If you see a name that is relatively popular but has never been popular before, you are not being clever by using it. You are being a follower and an idiot.

-Don’t use ironic old-person names. Hey, listen, I’m all about using names from older generations for kids, and I ain’t alone on this (just look at the cycling of names over the years to see). But some names are just bad sounding OLD names. So don’t name your kid Maude or Bertha or Shirley or anything like that. If the writers of Mad About You think it is a bad idea, then you know that it isn’t clever.

-Don’t use inappropriately overly ethnic names. Are Hispanic? Great, go for the name Jesus or Juanita. Russian? Ivan or Svetlana sound great. Greek? Konstantinos and Aphrodite are probably good (though I would advise against the second one for other reasons). There is nothing wrong with picking nice sounding names from other cultures, especially since here in America we have all sorts of cultures around us to get inspired from. I remember, though, watching a great episode of Frontline called “The Farmer’s Wife” where there was a cracker white woman named Juanita. I mean, wtf? I once knew a student who was an Arian looking chick from Minnesota named Tanisha. If you are picking a name from a different ethnicity as you are your spouse, do not use one that is so totally inappropriate that it seems obvious that you were trying too hard.

-No puns or wordplay. No, just don’t do it. It is stupid to do that with a freaking name. No Amanda Lynn’s, no Naveah (it is heavan, spelled backwards!), and god no alliterations please! These are crappy non-clever things.

-No first names that are too similar to the last name. No Gary Garrison, Marty Martin, Jonathan Johnson, Bill Wilson.

The most important lesson of all is do not give a name that sounds like you are trying too hard. I always say, names should be natural and not forced. If you are having trouble thinking of a name, take a break and do something else. Or go to the message boards and laugh at the bad choices people are making every day.

Message Board Boredom

Once again I raid the babynames.com message board for inspiration.

-om asks “WDYTO Sanaa for a girl? As a sister to Kinan?”
Starting off with an easy one! Way too forced, with the double a at the end. If you ALWAYS have to say how it is pronounced then you know you have a non-winner. Besides any time you have a unusual double lettering (aa, ii, uu) then you know you are trying too hard.

-ma jenn asks about the names (for a boy) “Nicholas, Daniel, Andrew, Matthew, Henry, Noah, Patrick, and Tyler”
These questions always kill me. I mean, you really need people to validate your choices of some of the most common names out there? Seriously? Here are some numbers for you: “20, 5, 10, 9, 91, 14, 116, 21.” Those are the popularities of those names. Sure Henry and Patrick aren’t insanely popular, but those others are just way common. If you need people’s opinions about those names than you probably have more problems than that child that is on its way.

-mrshamer asks about her DH (she must be in the American League) liking the name Claire, but she likes Carys for a girl.
Really? Carys? Plural of Cary? No, go with Claire, though you can choose Clair, Clare, or Clara (Spanish) or Chiara (Italian, but know how to pronounce it first). Carys? Really?


-Zed asks about Jacob or Caleb.
And so it comes to this: someone is asking random people on a message board if they like the freaking most popular boys name every years since 1999! Come on, what is WRONG with you? Really, it is a name that is THE MOST POPULAR and you STILL need people to tell you they like it? Caleb ain’t much better, as it has had a slow and steady climb over the past 20 years. You had to actually PAY to get on that message board to ask this question….


-Fog-struck asks about Eustace and Temperance.
Wow, those names are SOOOOO old school, I’m not sure how I feel about them. On the one hand, those kids will be made fun of because of it. But on the other hand, who cares what other kids think? Those names are so old school they make me smile and not in a mocking way. If you pick one of those names, you have to be prepared going in for the grief you will get (especially from your kid), but if you like it go for it. Not a name for those who can’t handle, though.

Ok, The Nametard is sick and I think I’ll end on a fun note like that.

Lazy Naming

If it is one thing I hate it is laziness in the creative process. Sure I also don’t like things that sound forced, but sheer laziness is even worse. If a name, for example, sounds forced then you know at least they put some thought into it and are trying (and failing, but still trying). It is the obviously lazily thought of names that get the most ire from me.

One thing that I’ve never been a fan of is giving a boy the same name as the father. Granted, if the name has been going down through the generations and the child would be the Fifth or the Sixth then that is something different because, hey, how many people do you even know of that are the Fifth or the Sixth and are not a king? Heck, I know of a Fourth and think it is really cool that you can trace your name back four generations. At that point the name itself becomes a family heirloom which has deep meaning to it.

But naming a son after you with him as just a Junior? Lazy. First, it is lazy because it really doesn’t take much though “just name him after me”, but it is worse because it is a bit egotistic to name a kid entirely after you (when you name a kid after someone you are honoring them and, what, you are honoring yourself?), but you are also saddling the kid with a name that is truly not his own. Sure, he might go by his middle name or Junior or something like that, but if you want him to go by his middle name, just name him that! And giving him the same first name as yourself, but changing the middle name, does not solve the problem at all, but instead makes it worse (“you are Joe Smith jr.? No, Joe F. Smith, not Joe E. Smith. He’s my dad”).

Laziness in names also is what makes trendy names so bad. Madison, for example (a post from earlier), is the best/worst example of trendy names, and it is incredibly lazy because people picked it because of the trend. If they did any research (use the freaking internet people!) they would have learned what it meant and why it is popular. Now we have a generation of girls saddled with a horrible name.

But lazy names really come to the forefront in literature, TV, and movies. A great example is The Office, where many of the names are dull and bland ‘normal’ names, but that fits perfectly within the show. The main character of the Brit version is David Brent and the American version is Michael Scott. Both are run-of-the-mill names (both have first names for last names, interestingly) that don’t stand out and could be people’s actual names. Within the universe defined by the show, these names work.

Now, here in America we have another show coming out called Parks and Recreation from “the people that brought you the Office”, though I imagine they are tangential producers of the American version since Gervais and Merchant are not associated with it. If you watch the previews it appears to be very un-Office-like in that it seems like it has too much forced wackiness, but whatever, I’m here to talk about names. The lead (played by Amy Poehler) name is Leslie Knope. Get it, Knope like ‘nope’? Wacky! And that silent K just adds to the wackiness! I’ll bet they use that for hilarious results. You see, the writers lazily tried to make everything wacky, including the name, despite it trying to be slice-of-life Office style. Maybe I’m being too hard on them, after all Knope might be a relatively common name despite me never ever hearing it before? Hmmmm…hello US Census site, let’s take a look. Oh, it doesn’t appear on the list of the top 88,000 last names. There are more people with the last name Abugn that there are with Knope. You see, they are taking the easy way out and thinking of wacky names for wacky characters. In this case it isn’t the names being lazy it is the creative process itself being lazy.

But the worst offender would undoubtedly be JK Rowlings. You know, I was happy to see the main character being named Harry Potter because that is just a normal, drab, boring, regular name for someone who is supposed to be so wonderful. I would half expect a stupid ajectivenoun name with fantastical components. But, nope, he is just Harry Potter which is a name that kids could relate to. She scores points with that.

I’ll even give her a pass on the use of incredibly annoying uses of jumbled Greek, Roman, and everything else mythology for names in the wizard world. Sure it is crappy sounding, but it gives the air of a different world than the regular world. Wizards probably should have these pompous and pretentious sounding names that harken back to magical sounding eras. So I’m good with that.

I start to get annoyed at the really stupid names like the last name Fudge, Dumbledore, and Hufflepuff. God, sometimes I expected the last name Pickles to show up. But those are stupid but not lazy.

The laziness is when she decides to make it quite obvious about the character (or house) from the name. Oh, look, there is Draco Malfoy. He must be bad, you know, like Draco of whom we get the term draconian from. And Malfoy, mal- being ‘bad’ in Latin. You know he is bad. Oh, look, there is Remus Lupin. In case you didn’t get the Remus part (two brothers, Rome, raised by a WOLF), there is the Lupin part which means “wolf-like.” You see, he is a WEREWOLF so he must have wolf names. Of course, he got werewolfness when he was attacked by another werewolf, but yet he was born with those wolfy names. He must have been targeted because of his all-too-appropriate names. Oh, and who targeted him? The werewolf Fenrir Greyback (Fenrir was a wolf from Norse mythology).

Sirius Black, see, Black=bad, but she did the switcharoo on you because he really wasn’t bad! She is the clever one! But, then again, the rest of the Black family was bad.

Rowlings must not know much about foreigners because, besides her horribly stereotypical accents they have, they have names that a 10 year old who only vaguely knows about foreign lands would give them. Someone from France? Give her a French sounding name, but I only know a few words so let’s through them together: Fleur Delacour. Flower of the Heart? Really?

Oh, and the stupid stupid stupid (repeat some more on your own) names of the houses! Gryffendor for bravery, you know, brave like a eagle and a lion? Of course. Ravensclaw is a horribly stupid adjnoun name for the smart house and ravens are smart, right? Sounds perfect! Slytherin, you know, they are bad and snake like and snakes slither! Hufflepuff is just a stupid name.

Laziness can come in many ways. It can be from a lack of thought, a lack of creativity, or a lack of actually thinking through the creative process. When people name characters for their stories, be it in the movies, television, books, bad internet fan fiction, or computer games, it is important that they aren’t lazy in the names as it reflects badly on every other aspect of their creative output. Names should be appropriate for the setting, not appropriate for the character’s type, personality, and role. A good test for this when you are reading (or watching, etc.) a name and you think “really? Really, THAT is his name?”

Red, White, and Blue

Yes, for us in America those are our national colors. Neato! I once had a Canadian tell me the story of their national flag, and when they decided to do it, they were going to have the bars be blue, representing the sea, and the leaf be red. It made sense because water is blue, and the red/white/blue color scheme was that of both of their mother nations of France and the UK. But the more liberal people in charge (who are usually represented as red like commies, unlike our ‘blue state’ liberals in the US) dropped the blue color in it and made it all red. I’m not sure how much of that story is true, but it sounded plausible and fun, so I’m going for it (and, hey, wikipedia leads credence to it).

The end result, for whatever reason, is that they got a flag that looked better and more distinct. Sure the red/white/blue color scheme was the original idea and reflected the heritage and all, but what boring, hackneyed, overplayed, derivative colors those are. Here is a side by side of the two flags (the leaves are a bit different, but just look at the colors). Which one stands out more? Which one seems more distinct? Which one seems more iconic? Yes, and this is all because the colors.


Red, White, and Blue are the flag colors of the US, UK and all the derivate boring flags like Australia and New Zealand, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Thailand, and many, many more. Sure, a country may want to honor another country by co-opting their flag characteristics, but that doesn’t mean be uncreative and crappy. I’ll start out with a classic red, white, and blue flag idea: Pan-Slavic flags.

Back in the day, when lots of Slavs were subject to outside rule (ironically, many due to Russia), there was a pan-Slavic revolutionary push, and they decided that the best way to make a symbol for it was to adopt such unique color combination like red, white, and blue in horizontal tricolor stripes. Because, you know, nothings says Slav like the flag of the freaking Netherlands. But people took it seriously and the whole copycat flag took off and we now have the following flags for different Slavic countries:

No, I won’t tell you which one is which because it doesn’t matter. As far as flag design, this is a big fail on those countries. Which one is Slovakia and which is Slovenia? Who cares, they aren’t really that different. The old USSR flag was even better since it was distinct and iconic. Well, not all Slavic countries went that direction. Bulgaria thought “yeah, we like the whole unoriginality of the Slavic flag, but let’s do something different, like make the blue into green!” Ok, so then we get this flag:


Oh, wait, no, that is Hungary’s flag (who aren’t Slavs, btw). THIS is Bulgaria’s flag:


Oh, I get it, the white is on the TOP, how very distinctively Bulgarian! At least Montenegro, once they slipped away from Serbia, decided that their old flag sucked and went with something else:


It is a little busy, and the two-headed eagle is another hackneyed Slavic thing, but it is an improvement. It does look like a carpet, though.

One of the things that makes a flag good is that it is distinct and means something. Pan-Slavic inspired flags tried that but mostly failed because their ‘being distinct’ was by using a color scheme that is incredibly popular with a flag design which is incredibly popular, and which the combination of that color scheme and design was already in use by at least two other nations.

But, this isn’t the worse offender when it comes to slavish adherence (yes, pun intended, though it isn’t so much a pun since slave and slavish is derived from the word Slavic) to an insipid pan-something color and design. But before I begin that, here is one of my favorite flags:


It is nice, not too busy, has a distinct design of the cedar tree which stands out and is framed by the bars. Simple, iconic, relevant to the nation, and just plain nice. How did Lebanon do that when they are surrounded by a sea of derivative mediocre flags? Here is the Arab Revolt flag that started it all:



And here are the flags of a bunch of Arab countries (I’ll include Palestine to add to the monotony):


I mean, who would even want to be able to sort through the incredibly small differences to figure out which flag is which? They are absolutely uncreative, confusing, and in no way do a good job of representing that country’s individuality. I saw someone with one of those flag on their car the other day (odd, knowing what part of the country I live in), and I had to think which one it was. I couldn’t remember the color order of the bars, but the triangle pennant had one star. I thought Jordan…and was right! But, you know, if I have to think that through (and I love flags), then the flag designer has failed.

Ok, I’m done with flags for now. I’ll do something about names next, and then I’ll bitch about sports team names (trust me, WNBA has the worst team names) sometime later. But before I go, here are my favorite flags from around the world (in no order):

Lebanon: I already talked about this. Nice, distinctive, simple.

Estonia: This one is amazing, since it is a boring tricolor flag, but it shows how picking the right colors can easily set a flag apart from the others. White, blue, and black aren’t that unusual, but they make this otherwise standard-looking flag stick out in a good way.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: A composite of three flags, it is absolutely distinct, iconic, and surprisingly simple and complex at the same time.

Brasil: Though I could do without the words (writing should never be on flag), and the star pattern is a bit complex, it is still distinctive, iconic, and nice looking.

Greece: It is a bit like the US flag, but the single color scheme and the cross instead of stars design makes it work.

Israel: Like Lebanon (I’m sure that is not a comparison you hear often) it has a distinctive symbol framed by bars. Sometimes (like this and Greece and Canada) a single color and white scheme works best.

Vatican City: Yeah, it represents, what, 5 people? I don’t like the “short” look, but the unusual white and yellow bars and the symbol make it stand out without being overly complex.

Canada: Touched on above.

Georgia: Not the greatest and pretty bland, it still is better than most other flags. Beats the original flag they had.

United States of America: Yeah, I know, homerism, right? Not quite. The US flag is a nice flag that is the definition of iconic. Even if I wasn’t an American, I would like the flag.

If your favorite flag wasn’t on there, rest assured that it sucks. Oh, FYR Macedonia, you tried way too hard on your flag and it shows. As with names, flags should not seem forced, and yours was.

No names today, just flags

While The Nametard is mainly interested in names, there are other similar topics that I’ll touch on occasionally. Today is one of those days as I talk about flags.

Flags are similar to names in that they are a representation of an entity, instead of a person it is a country. I could easily critique country names like Central African Republic or Uruguay, but flags are my focus today. As with names, they shouldn’t feel forced, but should also be somewhat representative of the country. When the vexillology people rated the US and Canadian flags, they tended to favor those that were “strong, simple, distinctive” and I couldn’t agree more. Hell, I think that describes my view on names (though ‘simple’ is more subjective). I like their choices for the most part:


1) New Mexico: Nice, simple, and distinctive. The color scheme of red on yellow makes it stand out to the other boring flags without making it look like a McDonalds Uniform.



2) Texas: Now Texas is interesting because, all in all, it is relatively ho-hum and is somewhat similar to the US flag (and Cuba and others), BUT it is simple and was their national flag when Texas was its own freaking country. It has history and is an actual symbol with meaning. Can’t argue with that.



3) Quebec: It is nice, despite being the boring cross general design. I wouldn’t have put it at 3 (I also wouldn’t have put Texas as 2), but a solid pick.




4) Maryland: Ok, I am incredibly biased as this is my home state and I absolutely love the flag. Yeah it is busy, but it is distinctive and has history attached to it. New Mexico probably has the only state flag that could beat it in a contest, so I can’t complain about that. Maryland would be #2 easily if I did the list.



5) Alaska: I disagree totally with this. Yay, big dipper? How is that distinctive for Alaska? Plus, it reminds me of the crappy Australia and New Zealand flags. Too much small detail with stars only. Not horrible, but not top 10 let alone 5.



6) Arizona: I like the AZ flag, it is distinctive, has distinctive colors and design and isn’t too busy. The choice of colors is a bit ugly, but better than the boring red, white, and blue.



7) Puerto Rico: Meh, it is a boring derivative of the US flag. Texas can get away with it, but that is it. At least they didn’t do something stoopid like Ohio and make it a pennant.



8) D.C.: Meh, it is ok, but nothing really distinctive. It says something about the total crap of state flags that this is actually a ‘good’ one.



9) Marshall Islands: I do not like it. I’m not a fan of the diagonally expanding streak. It looks crappy and amateurish. Crappy.




10) South Carolina: Trust me, South Carolinians love their flag. It is a symbol that you will see on any SC expat’s car. So it is relatively boring with just white on blue, but otherwise it is what a flag should be. I’d put it at #3 if I were doing this list.


Oh, and I do agree that Georgia had the worst state flag. Yeah, they changed it, but still, they even thought this was a good idea?

Collateral damage of names

When we were thinking of names for our daughter, one of the possibilities was Madelyn/Madeline. It was a nice name, classy, was the name of the female lead on Moonlighting, and the nickname Maddie/Maddy was cute. But we looked at popularity data and saw that it was rising and becoming pretty popular (a slow steady rise to about 100/70 for Madelyn/Madeline respectively), so there was a threat that it may become too trendy, but what REALLY turned us off is that the nickname Maddy could also be used for Madison, the #3 name for girls and one of the worst, trendy, stupid names out there (see my post from awhile ago). So, for us, Madison helped kill our choice of Madelyn for our daughter (don’t worry, we are much happier with the name we did pick); in effect, Madelyn was collateral damage.

So what other names would be collateral damage for the super trendy popular names? Well, before I talk about that, it is interesting that as the super trendy popular names grow in popularity, it actually INCREASES the names that would have related nicknames (like Madelyn increasing along with Madison). You see, most people are sheep (oh, not you of course!) and when things get popular, they want to join in. But some people want to be different, so they will do alternative (sometimes stupid alternative) spellings or similar sounding names. That way, they are being unique but still are sheep following the crowd (their uniqueness is superficial, but enough were they can pretend they aren’t blindly following everyone else). For people like me (I’m sure I am a sheep for many things, but not for naming children), Madison killed Madelyn and Madeline, but for others it just increased the attractiveness of similar-to-trendy sounding names. Just look at Emily being hugely popular (#1 every year since 1996) followed closely by Emma’s rise to hugely popular (#2 now).

I remember when I was in high school there was a girl named Genevieve. I didn’t know her, but I knew she went by Gen/Jen, which sort of killed any originality of her name (I don’t like the name anyway) because there were hundreds of Jennifers that went by Jen in my school (born in the 70s and all). So while her name was not Jennifer, it might as well have been. In my opinion, Jennifer killed Genevieve for children in the 70’s.

What about now? For years girl’s names have been much more in flux than boy’s names, but that seems to be changing. Michael finally lost its top spot (though it is #2) and we are getting names like Aiden and Ethan and Noah being hugely popular, so soon we may have a situation like with girls names where the turnover is relatively quick, making certain names seem trendy and dated for each generation. So while Christian has had a slow steady climb for the last few decades, in reality most people will call him Chris, which is the main nickname of Christopher (“Topher” is a horrible nickname for this, I’ll explain why someday), which has been a top name for quite a while now.

If you want to name a child something that isn’t common or trendy, while it is important that you get a name that is not a variant of a common or trendy name, it is also important to not name them something that sounds like a common or trendy name or can be nicknamed to the same nick as a common or trendy one.

For multiple reasons, I looked up Addison and almost puked. Yeah, we get it, you don’t want to be trendy by naming your daughter Madison, so you go with Addison (just like on Grey’s Anatomy! Twice damned name). But you know, you are being just as trendy, look at the data (year and rank for girl’s names):
1994: 800
1995: 677
1996: 547
1997: 475
1998: 403
1999: 369
2000: 322
2001: 270
2002: 220
2003: 191
2004: 160
2005: 106 (a character on Grey’s Anatomy shows up with this name!)
2006: 27 (she becomes more popular on the show!)

God only knows what it’ll be like for 2007, since she got a spinoff that year! People are idiots.