| Rant : Suffer The Little Children (continued) Hi, you�re here, and so am I. Next at #9 is Anthony, another nice surprise. From #8 we kick off the pillar of predictability, with Christopher. Like, come on. It gets worse. #7 is Joseph. At #6 is Andrew and at #5 is Joshua. Remember what I said about the Bible, people? It�s not over. At #4 is Matthew, which honestly, given the fact that I know enough �Matt�s and �Matthew�s to last me ten lifetimes over, should really be gone from this list already. At #3 is Nicholas, which is fine, except that who ever calls their son that anymore. Everyone just goes Nick or Nicky, am I right? And #2 is the perennial favourite which I solely blame on the fact that a certain member of the musical Jackson clan cannot die fast enough. Yes, it�s Michael. And what�s at #1? A really surprising choice. It�s Jacob. I mean, huh? That�s as rare as they come, I think. I only know one �Jacob� in my whole life and he�s older than I am. To whom does the world owe this sudden resurgence in popularity of this marvellous name? And what of the girls? I thought I�d landed on Planet Bizarre with this one. At #10 is Jasmine, which is a good name if you�re a teddy bear. Many expectant mothers must have been sipping jasmine tea and then decide to name their child after a beverage. Why they didn�t pick Camomile is seriously beyond me. In at #9 is Samantha, which is a poor name to give. Let me tell you why : you�re just gonna end up shortening it to Sam or Sammy, and then your poor baby is going to have a gender identity crisis. #8 is a horrendous choice, and a name I quite frankly had never heard of until that fateful day in December 2001. It�s Brianna, and I know I don�t even have to crack a joke for you to laugh at that one. Just envision this : in 2020, a record company will be unleashing the debut CD of a Brianna Spears. Shudder. At #7 is Ashley (blame Laura Ashley boutiques, go on) and #6 is the similar-sounding Hailey. There is clearly a pattern here, because we all know their parents will end up calling them �Ash� and �Hail� respectively. Then what do you get? A sample telephone conversation in the year 2012, when such 2001 babies reach the age of 11, otherwise known as the �will-you-just-shut-up-about-the-new-Jacob-whatever-album-and-go-to-your-room-now� age : Ashley (on the phone) : Boo-hoo, my mummy named me after a speck of dirty soot! Hailey : Baw-haw, my daddy named me after a chunk of ice that falls from the sky and causes much pain! Ashley : Boo-hoo, Hailey, all I wanted was the new Jacob Wh---ver CD! Hailey : Baw-haw, Ashley, was that it? I think Brianna has a copy of it. I�ll get her to send you the MP3s then you can burn it onto a CD. Ashley : Woo-hoo, Hail, you�re the best! Hailey : Baw-haw! MUM!!! Ashley called me a painful chunk of ice!! (slams the phone) Ahem. The hijinks continue. At #5 is Sarah, which is a name I adore, so I�m going to be nice about it. Next at #4 is Madison, which I quite frankly do not get. Like Madison Square Garden? Did all these parents charter ten planes to go on a group honeymoon to New York? Or is this some tribute to the Sep 11 incidents in New York? Or did Madonna suddenly buy up the copyright to the moniker �Maddy�, forcing all parents to come up with the freakish-sounding �Madison�? At #3 is a name I had heard of, but the spelling here made me blink a couple of times and refresh the page just to make sure. It�s Kaitlyn, which looks about as ridiculous a name as it feels typing it. By the way, so far, MS Word rejects Brianna, Hailey and Kaitlyn as legitimate words. For �Brianna�, they suggest �Brian�, �Brain� and �Brine�. For Hailey, they suggest �Haley� (I blame the stupid Osment kid) and �Harley� (ha!) while for �Kaitlyn� they suggest �Caitlyn�, which is how I know it anyway. Because this rant is going on for far too long already, I�ll quickly wrap up. At #2 is Hannah while at #1 is Emily. Emily?? That name just draws a blank for me. It�s like the parents looked down at the face of their beaming baby blank, saw a blank piece of flesh in front of them (I couldn�t have said �staring back at them�, could I? It�s blank!!) and then decided to themselves, �Honey, I think we�ll name it Emily�, to which the appropriate reply was �Yes, after my late great-grandmother, that�s a wonderful idea�. After all, there are worse female names to be saddled with (particularly if you're not female, but that was a cheap joke there). In the interest of space and your sagging attention, I shall just name two. The first is Margarita. Now that is just admitting to your gynaecologist, your nurse, your in-laws, your husband, your babysitter, your child, and ultimately, your grandchildren, that you have a drinking problem. I mean, sure, sad too for the poor boy who's named Jack Daniel. The second is Roberta. Now, this one. That's the equivalent of telling your sweet baby daughter, "You know what, you goo-goo-doll? We really wanted a boy whom we could name Robert, but there was a chromosome problem, and you were the result. So we're naming you Roberta instead". I mean, don't you just hate it when parents go "if it's a boy, we'll call him Joseph; if it's a girl, we'll call her Josephine"? You're on your helpless way to twenty-one bliss-less years of parenting hell, and you want to get off to a perfect start by being lazy with the naming?! Anyway, as this obnoxiously hateful rant directed at young infants who cannot even pick up a carrot stick much less defend themselves comes to an all-too-early end, Mr Dawg here would just like to thank each and every one of you for paying visits to my homepage. We broke the 100-visitor barrier today, and I�m very heartened and grateful for your patronage. I hope I have not turned off any of you but rather, have given you just cause to smile on this drab and dreary January day, wherever you may be. Keep checking back for more. |