What Were They Thinking?

I was at the Northeastern v. Boston University hockey game last night, and BU Senior Defenseman, Tom Morrow was on the ice. Tom Morrow. What were his folks thinking when they gave him that name? Was he born a day early? ("Damnit, Eileen, he was supposed to be born tomorrow.")

I then started thinking about my friend, CK, who has a Book of Names, where he saves correspondence from folks like Richard Head (Dick Head) and Richard Liss (Dick Liss). Then, there is Dick Johnson, Dick Hartigan, Dick Wood, and Richard Bigger. (Interstingly, Attorney Bigger--Attorney Dick Bigger--is a Junior, meaning that there is a first generation Dick Bigger.)

This gave way to other bad names, like DeShaun (DeShaun Foster, RB, Carolina Panthers), Deval (His Excellency Deval Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), LeShaun (LeShaun Williams, rapper), NuShaun (NuShaun Williams (no relation to LeShaun), who intentionally infected dozens of women with HIV) and Keyshawn (Keyshawn Johnson, WR). I could also list some ethnic names, such as Barack (Senator Barack Hussein Obama, D-IL), Niger (Niger Innis, National Spokesman for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)), and Muhammed (Muhammed Ali, the greatest boxer of all time). Then, I could list, for shits and giggles, the stupid-ass names that Hollywood-types have given their kids (though none of them are old enough to have made a mark on the world), such as Rumor (Dummy Moore and Bruce Willis's daughter), Apple (Gwynneth Paltrow's daughter) and Moon Unit (Frank Zappa's daughter).

This led me to conclude two things:

First, when parents name their children, they are generally not thinking clearly (as evidenced, for example, by two sets of parents who named their twins, respectively, Flubrette and Flubrina, and Lemonjello and Orangejello (pronounced Lemongelo and Orangelo)); and, second, the old adage, "What's in a name?" is quite accurate.