I have thoughts about the name of the Musk/Grimes child. Should he read this one day, I’d like to apologize ahead of time, because the only people who should feel bad about his (apparent) given name are his parents.
Maybe this makes me some species of curmudgeon, but I’m really over the use of creative orthography in the naming of children.
A human’s name is not the title of a conceptual artwork. It’s a gift from a parent to a new person, and as such it belongs to the person who bears it, not the parent. Treating the process of naming a person like performance art is, frankly, an abuse of a highly personal trust.
When I was a kid, I was extremely adamant that my name was David and I was to be called that, because I was often bullied and made fun of, and I didn’t trust people with “Dave” or especially “Davey”. Looking back, I feel I was overly stubborn at times, but all the same it was my name and I was within my rights. To this day, I insist that most people call me David.
When I got a little order I loosened up a bit, and I used “Dav” a lot in writing, especially online (pronounced like Dave). But that was my choice, and it was also something I wasn’t nearly as comfortable hearing out loud. Only a handful of people call me Dave now, who met me online as Dav, and I tolerate it because I did after all introduce myself that way.
My uncle often greets me with a Spanish “David”, but that’s cool because we get along really well and he’s Puerto Rican, so it comes naturally. My dad does it occasionally too, because he’s a dork like that. But I’ve never questioned in my whole life that my family took my name seriously when they gave it to me, and have respected my right to have it the way I wanted.
Names mean a lot to people, and it is disrespectful to trifle with them. I have a student whom I met four years ago with one name, and then within a few months reintroduced himself with a new one, because he was transitioning to a new gender. Within a year he was on to a new name/nickname combination, and so far it’s stuck. Making sure his name and pronouns were respected was one of our main priorities in helping his whole class through the transition.
Most people don’t have to go through a process like that, but those who do can surely appreciate that a person’s name belongs to that person alone. And even if a person makes the decision to put their birth name aside and take on a new one of their own choosing, it would be considerate of their parents not to start them off in life with a name that reflects nothing but their own vanity.
I would never go so far as to say all spelling variants, or unusual names, or even faux-unusual fad names are illegitimate, because that’s nonsense. What’s important is the parents’ motivation in giving a name, and I for one think it’s transparent that “X Æ A-12“ is a name that exists to turn the birth of a child into a spectacle and promote the Musk/Grimes brand.
People speculate on what the Musk/Grimes child is going to actually be called by his parents when they put their twitter accounts down and use spoken language, but what about the matter of what this kid is going to call himself, in his own mind? Naming a child after the mere concept of a mathematical variable, a multilingual orthographic pun, and a goddamn military spyplane, all at the same time, does not communicate that the name was given with any thoughtfulness. It’s trifling masquerading as significance.
And it would still be a thousand times better if they had just spelled it as X Ash Archangel, instead of insisting on turning the act of reading the name into a rebus, or a cryptic crossword puzzle. But no - they preferred to give their kid the precious gift of one day being able to google himself and learn that the occasion of his birth was met with a chorus of utter confusion over what a weird fucking name he was given.
Name your kids whatever you want; but is it too much to ask parents to consider what is it about names that actually gives them meaning, and even “uniqueness”? Or at the very least, to not treat the naming of a child like an album drop or an IPO?
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