Name Constraints

This whole name-a-kid-for-the-rest-of-his-life thing is tricky. I wrote a little bit about our quest to pick a name while avoiding family taboos here. Basically, we are working under a number of naming constraints (some religious, some cultural, some self-imposed, ...). They include:

1. In traditional Jewish custom, you name children with either a first name or a middle name (or both) that honors a dead relative. When I say "honors," I mean that the name typically starts with the same first initial as the person you're honoring. So, if you're honoring someone named Shlomo, you don't need to name your helpless infant Shlomo, but you would typically choose a name starting with "S." And when I say "dead," I mean that the person you're honoring really does need to have passed away, or else it's really rude (kinda like wishing they were already dead). In our case, we're planning to honor my maternal grandmother.

2. It is also traditional in Jewish culture that you not pick a name that anyone in your family already has, which is also considered rude, not to mention bad luck. So, if poor dead Shlomo was extremely beloved, leading to a run of cousins named Steve, Saul, Sadie, Simon, and Samantha, you have to find something new that hasn't been used yet. In our case, the letter of the alphabet that we're working with is great for girls names, but a bit lacking in good boy options, hence the conflict with my brother, who is trying to honor the same grandmother. We're also limited by the fact that a whole lot of our cousins had children before us, so the limited number of boy names for this particular letter has already been diminished some.

3. In Japanese-American tradition, children born in the U.S. are given good ole American first names, and Japanese middle names. The middle name typically honors a relative. Here, "honors" means "given the exact same name" -- none of this single-letter stuff. There's usually no restriction on who is honored, but see constraint (1) above. This combination of constraints is causing us some problems because the people we would normally like to honor (eg, S's paternal grandfather) was already honored, while he was still alive, by giving his name to be S's middle name, which would then violate constraint (2). So, we need to find someone to honor who nobody else wanted to honor until now. Tricky.

4. A lot of Japanese names are a bit awkward for English speakers to pronounce. Note here that "English speakers" includes S and most of his family, since the family has been in the U.S. for several generations and none of them actually speak more than a few words of Japanese. So, we're trying to find an ancestral Japanese name that is also fairly short. (For example, if it were a girl, we'd be thinking something like Yoko, but without the breaking-up-the-band connotations.)

5. The letter that we need to use for constraint (1) doesn't exist in Japanese. So, it's impossible to fulfill (1) and (3) with the same name. Thus, constraint (1) will need to be the first name, leaving (3) to fill the middle name.

6. Our last name is a bit unusual -- see constraint (4) on pronouncing Japanese names in English, and then add that the last name is unusual even in Japan. We've been calling our in-utero baby Barack mainly because our last name more or less rhymes with Obama, and we're fans of puns. We're not truly going to saddle the kid with a name in common with a presidential candidate, regardless of party affiliations, but the point here is that not very many names "go" with our last name.

7. Another implication of us being Jewish: we'd prefer to pick a Jewish-sounding first name, particularly since the middle name and last name are obviously Japanese. It doesn't necessarily have to be Hebrew, but names that sound too "waspy" or New Testament are out. No offense here, because I do like a lot of waspy names, but we just won't be going that direction. The ironic thing here is that Barack is actually a good Israeli name....

8. Regardless of how we meet constraint (7), we will need to pick a Hebrew name as well, for use on religious occasions. Usually, the Hebrew name sounds something like the English name. In our case, we will also need a Hebrew middle name that sounds something like the Japanese middle name. And let me tell you -- not a lot of shared linguistic roots between Hebrew and Japanese.

9. The final constraints are more personal preference. We don't want a name that is too common, but we also don't want to stick the kid with something too unusual. He's going to stand out enough being both Japanese and Jewish (an unusual combination that S has been dealing with for quite some time, but only as an adult). I'd also like a name that has nickname possibilities. I've always been Nicky -- it's not short for Nicole, nobody has ever called me Nick, and I was always a little sad that I didn't have a pet name. Same with S. So I'd like to find something that has a cute "short" form that Barack can choose to use or abandon later in life.

The search continues....