We're still spending more time discussing possible names than planning renovations or researching the Montessori method. I really believe it matters what you name someone. I love my name now, but when I was a kid my parents saddled me with a terrible, ridiculous nickname which I hated... which I have always hated, and hate to this day. I hated my nickname so much that I often lied to people about my name. Especially in my adolescence, I invented completely different names for different contexts, groups, purposes. I can't say with certainty that I wouldn't have done the same if I had gone by Waldron, or even if I had been given an innocuous, common name like James or Michael. But being embarrassed by my name had a profound effect on my social development, and while there may have been some strength-building there, I think it did far more harm than good.
So I'm thinking very hard about what to name this kid. A lot of the names that appeal to me are instantly counteracted by my erudite-sounding surname. One category of these is what Mary and I refer to as "cowboy names". We like names like Zeke and Jed, but you can't pair a cowboy name with Faulkner. Buck Faulkner? Skeet Faulkner? No.
And then there's the somewhat similar category of "tough-guy" names which we both tend to like but are equally doomed when paired with Faulkner. These would include names like Stone and Bud and Tank. You simply cannot give a kid a name which could be shortened to "Mac" if your last name is Faulkner.
The grand-sounding names like Rex or Max or anything else with an 'x' in it? Or the too-cool names like Rafe? Trying too hard. Maybe if we were yacht people. Same goes for alliterative names. Anything starting with an 'F' sound, like Fred or Frank or Forest, seems like we're setting him up to be a certain type of person. Finn Faulkner? He ends up in show business or sales. That'd be fine, but I'd prefer not to suspect it was because of his name.
Hippy names: Rain, Sky, Kai, anything of that genre. Not for us.
So we're limited either to "normal", common names like James or Christopher or Samuel - which we both feel would be a little unimaginative - or the erudite, literary-sounding names that work so well with a name like Faulkner. Like Waldron. But on principal, I have a problem with the recent trend of appropriating names that sound like they ought to be family names, even though they're nowhere in either parent's tree. Landon, Brayden, Wyatt: all of these were in the top 100 most popular names for boys in 2005. They'd all sound great with Faulkner, but it's just way too pretentious to pull a country-club name out of thin air like that. No, it'll have to be a family name.
I come from a family with a rich tradition of naming its boys with pretentious-sounding first and middle names, so there is no shortage of material. Starting with Waldron, which is just ridiculously literary-sounding. Other Faulkner men have been named Winthrop (my uncle) and Avery (my father). A great family name on my mother's side is Watson. Now there's a good candidate, right? For many years I thought it would be a great first name for a son - provided I could find a suitable nickname, because no child wants to go through life with a name associated largely with side-kicks. But to my everlasting disappointment my sister chose to name a dog Watson, and then give the dog to me, probably specifically to make it impossible for me to name a son Watson without everyone thinking I had named him after the famous black Lab who lays snoring by my side even as I type this.
Watson would have to be a middle name, if anything. No matter, it's a fine middle name.
A lot of fancy names end in "er" (including Hunter and Tyler, both of which fall into the category of pseudo-upper-class-sounding names that I detest so). There's another name on my Mom's side - Latimer - which would be unique, and a family name, and have the right tone to it, but when a first name and last name both end in "er" it just doesn't sound right. One of my famous relatives is named Dexter. Dexter Faulkner breaks the dual "er" rule, as does Latimer Faulkner.
Believe it or not, a good potential name can cross all these hurtles and still be disqualified. Addison is a family name on Mary's side. Addison Faulkner... not bad, right? Sorry, my good friend has a child by that name. Or Vaughn... that's also a name in Mary's family. Vaughn is the name of the child of my coworker. These names are taken, and so must be ruled-out.
So no matter how much time we spend on it, we still end up back where we've been since way before we ever thought seriously of having kids, with the name of Mary's great grandfather: Eliot. One couple, good friends of ours, is expecting in the next few months. They threatened to use the name Eliot, but it turns out they're having a girl. It was a close call... this is the same couple who had their wedding just two months before ours and accidentally stole our first-dance song! You can imagine how upset we'd be if they'd also stolen our first choice name for a boy.
So it might be Eliot. I have to decide if it's too wimpy sounding - Eliot Faulkner. I have to decide how it might be shortened. Eli is a great name, not too weird, not too uncommon, not too wimpy. It's also the slang for a Yale student (after the bulldog mascot). My father went to Yale, and so did his, the other Waldron Faulkner. I don't personally have any affinity for the school, but it's a pleasant association in our family. However, one has to be careful using the name of a popular NFL quarterback. The whole nation is liable to come down with Eli-fever. For now, though, we hope the contagion may be safely contained between the coasts, in Indianapolis.
So for now, if it's a boy, it's Eliot Watson Faulkner. Little Eli. And if it's a girl? Well, stay tuned.
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