The other day our oldest son came up with his first spelling test. He scored 100%–spot, trot, quit, split all spelled correctly in his lopsided first grade handwriting. “Congratulations,” I began to tell him,” this is so great. Way to go, um, Steve?!”
It seems my adorable eldest son has decided he wants to be called Steve. His name is not Stephen or Esteban or anything remotely related to Steve. So now, not only does he wear ties and want a navy blue blazer and “nice shoes”, now he also wants the name of a 40-year old insurance salesman. Hey, no offense to all the Steves out there. But I would have thought a 6-year old might be more prone to pick a name like Rocky or Blackie or Hercules. I would not have put my money on Steve.
And he has a great name. I love F.’s name. I love all my kids’ names actually. Though I’m having some regrets with L.’s name. Chances are big F and middle D will go through life with pretty distinct names that won’t have to be modified with their last initial their entire lives. I spent all of middle and high school as Katie K., so I like the fact that there aren’t a million kids with the same name running around.
But then along came L. and as our third boy in just about as many years, I wasn’t up for the challenge of naming him. A true case of decision fatigue, I was just kind of sick of picking out boys’ names. Hadn’t I just picked out a cool name 18 months ago? And 20 months before that? Now I have to do it again? Already, this three kid thing was too tough.
We were in the hospital for three days after the c-section and didn’t name the poor kid until the day we were checking out. A couple of times a day, at nurse shift change, we’d be asked, “So does this little guy have a name yet?” Nope. Finally, on the last day one of the nurses convinced us to pick a name because it would be “a lot easier to do it then rather than after we leave the hospital.” I had always liked the name L. and it worked nicely with F. and D. and so we went with it.
But now, everywhere we go there is always another L. in earshot. When I call him at the playground, three kids turn and look at me. And so I’ve come to terms with the fact that unlike F. and D., L. is bound to go through life as first and last name. You know those people. You probably work with them or went to school with them–no one calls them John. It’s John Rice.
“Where is John Rice?”
“I just talked to John Rice.”
“I’m going to lunch with John Rice.”
That is L.’s fate. On the upside, no one mispronounces his name like they mangle poor D.’s. While L. will go through life as one of seven L.’s in his class. D. will go through life telling every teacher how to pronounce his name and spelling it when he tries to make reservations over the phone. Although, I guess by the time he is making dinner reservations, no one will even be using phones. They’ll just be teleporting themselves all over the galaxy and popping meal pills for sustenance. And I’ll be sitting in my rocking chair boring everyone with stories about how we used to drive cars with wheels and eat food that we had to cook first.
So, F. wants to be called Steve. I’m sure all kids go through this phase of wanting to be called something else. I hope F. one day appreciates the name his father and I put a lot of thought and care into picking. I hope one day he thinks it is as cool as we do.
And if L. wants to change his name to Pilot Inspektor or Moxie or Banjo to differentiate himself from all the other L.s out there, I’ll totally understand.
