An Open Letter

This is an open "letter" to those couples who are pregnant, may become pregnant or are contemplating adding a child to their family some time within their lifetime.

As a parent, we gave our children a number of things that last their entire lifetime. Eye color. Hair color. Skin color. Temperment. Sense of humor (or lack thereof). Athletic ability (or lack thereof). Musical ability (or lack thereof) The list goes on. However, with each of these, because we were born with each of these traits, it is not our choice per se to pass them on to our children. However, there is one thing that we give our children that lasts their entire lifetime that we are solely responsible for.

Their name.

The inspiration for this post came a while ago when Missy and I took Riley to an indoor playground/melting pot of kids, foam, slides and sweat. We were watching our son happily dodge seven year olds as they ran, punched, kicked and tackled anything in their way. All of a sudden, a woman who was old enough to have survived the Titanic shuffled in with a 40 year old camera. She feebly tried to corral two of the boys for long enough to get a picture of her grandsons.

"Braxton!"

"Jagger!"

"Come over here, please. Braxton, can you stand next to your brother Jagger, please?"

From that moment, I knew I had write this post.

As a parent, you are given a tremendous responsibility to name another human being. That name will stay with them forever. I felt this weight when we were pregnant with Riley. Missy bought the baby name book and we combed through thousands of names until we found the one we thought was perfect. There are certain things you need to avoid when naming your child.

#1. You cannot give them a name that rhymes with something kids can pick on them for.
#2. You shouldn't give them a name that doesn't definitely tell what gender they are. (Oops. "Oh, your son is named Riley? We have a daughter and a niece named Riley!")

However, I would like to add another rule to the child naming commandments.

Think of the oldest person you are related to - preferably a grandparent or great grandparent. They will LOVE your child. And they will say your child's name. Pick a name that doesn't sound weird when an old person says it. They won't know it sounds weird. Actually they might but that won't stop them from saying it. Other people are going to have to hear them say it and will feel bad because their grand (or great grand) child has a name that the parent tried too hard to sound cool.

There are some sub-rules that go with this one:
-don't name your child after the name of a musician - Jagger, Braxton, Elvis
NOTE: Dylan is acceptable.
-don't name them after places - London, Ireland, Paris
-don't name them after nouns - Rider, Hunter, Pearl
And a new one inspired by a recent playground encounter:
-don't take great names and give your kid a knockoff name - Briley. I would also add "Bryan" to this list. Why mess with a good thing?

So all of that to say, you parents have a tremendous responsibility. You will not only impact your child but the hundreds or thousands of people who will have to say that child's name.
Follow the above rules and you will go a long way to giving your child a happy life.

(Author's note: This post was written while sitting in a room with no air conditioning. Any misspellings, grammatical errors or the fact that his child's name completely contradicts the above rules can be directly attributed to the fact that the author wrote this post while facing temperatures similar to those found on the surface of the sun. Gosh we need a laptop.)