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Strollerderby
Does your family share a last name?
My kids have beautiful first names. Names that I’m proud of, that I delight in saying aloud and seeing written.
But their last names. Ow. They’re hobbled with a big, clunky feminist compromise of a last name.
I have my own name. Their dad has his. The kids got both. Which means not only do they have clunky last names, but we don’t share a family name. I can’t imagine having taken my husband’s name at marriage, but there are times when I wish my whole family shared one simple last name.
Whose last name does your child have?
Parents give lots of thought to what to name their children. And with good reason! Pick the wrong one and your kid could end up with loose morals, leading a life of crime. Pick a good one and your child will fit right in with the upper crust. Or so they say.
But surnames are a different story. For many families, children are born with built-in last names: the same one mom and dad share. But these days, it is increasingly common for mom and dad to not share a last name. They get married, she keeps her name, he keeps his, and it’s all good.
Until babies come along, that is. At that point, a decision must be made about what surname to put on the birth certificates. Continue reading »
I’m loving the comment thread over at the OhDeeDoh design site, which stepped into the baby name arena with a post on the hottest trends of 2010.
Short names, retro names, names with L and Felix are apparently the next “It” thing when it comes to labeling tots.
But is it always so good to be on the cutting edge? Continue reading »
If you’re like me, you probably won’t get around to reading Gail Collins’s new book for a few more months/years. Instead, you have to settle for reading all the articles about and interviews with the author of When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.
Among the quick-and-easy offerings is this interview with Jezebel‘s Doree Shafrir. The two talk about the book, feminism then and now and even stuff that’s not in the book. For example: women keeping their names. Collins’s explanation of why a woman feels it’s necessary to take her husband’s name surprised me. Continue reading »
Oh, those wacky Swedes! Following the selection of such names as Lego, Ikea, and Metallica, a Swedish couple has won the right (in court, no less!) to name their baby Q. No, that’s not short for Quentin, Quinn, or even Quark. It’s just Q, as in the letter in between P and R.
And here you thought your kid’s rank on the Social Security Administration list was the best way to rank its avant garde factor. There’s another Web gadget doing statistical analysis of inane information to make it cool again.
Think Five Thirty Eight for the parent set, the Baby Name Mapper from the Baby Name Wizard (Disclaimer, I once interviewed the site’s creator for a dispatch on Babble about baby naming trends) will let you know when “your” name peaked in popularity and when. Continue reading »
THE Gucci whose name is all over your purse (or in my case, all over my much richer friends’ purses) is dead, but a kid several generations down the line has just learned she can’t use his name anymore.
Or else. Continue reading »
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