The ink is barely dry
On the birth certificate application,
A document that weighs
Heavier than the Magna Carta
In the hands of two sleep-deprived
Amateur linguists.

They stare at the newborn,
A wrinkled, squalling bundle
Of infinite potential,
And decide that “John”
Is simply an insult
To the uniqueness of this DNA.

This is not a human being;
This is a brand launch.
This is the debut of an aesthetic,
A bumper sticker on the minivan of life,
And the parents are the marketing team
Running on caffeine and hubris.

They begin the excavation
Of the alphabet,
Discarding the vowels
That have served humanity well
For millennia.
Why use an “i”
When a “y” can do the job
With twice the pretension?
Why have a “c”
When a “k” looks so much sharper,
Like a weaponized consonant?

We see the rise of the Scrabble Players,
Parents who seem to have shaken
A bag of wooden tiles
Onto the hospital linoleum
And accepted whatever
Chaos landed near the bed.

“Meet little Zayden,” they say.
“And his sister, Braylee.”
“And their cousin, KVIIIlyn.”
(That’s Kaitlyn, spelled with Roman numerals,
Because nothing says ‘suburban middle class’
Like the decline of an Empire).

Then come the Archaeologists.
These are the parents
Who own leather-bound books
And smell faintly of nutmeg.
They want a name with *weight*,
A name that groans under the pressure
Of its own etymology.

They scour the dead languages,
Blowing dust off Sumerian clay tablets
And Old Norse runestones.
They want a name that means
“Ruler of the High Sea”
Or “She Who Commands The Thunder.”

So they name the child
Something unpronounceable,
Something guttural and ancient.
They name him “Theodoric”
Or “Vercingetorix.”
They look at their six-pound infant,
Who currently lacks the neck strength
To hold up his own head,
And grant him a title
Fit for a warlord beheading his enemies
In the mud of Gaul.

The irony, of course,
Is lost on everyone
Except the history teacher
Fifteen years later.
The parents beam with pride,
Thinking they have bestowed
The spirit of a warrior king.
But usually, they haven’t checked
The alternate translations.

They pick a root word
From an obscure dialect
Thinking it means “Beloved Princess,”
Only to find out
It actually translates roughly to
“Owner of Many Goats”
Or “Small, Angry Badger.”
But it sounds melodic,
So the error stands.

Then we have the Trailblazers,
The pioneers of the Unisex.
They wish to shatter the glass ceiling
By confusing the mailman.
They want a name that is a blank canvas,
Devoid of gender norms.

It starts innocently enough.
Jordan. Taylor. Morgan.
Safe. Understandable.
But the addiction to neutrality grows.
They move to nouns.
River. Sage. Skylar.
Still acceptable, mostly.

But then they push too far.
They start naming children
After heavy machinery
Or geological eras.
“This is my daughter, Diesel.”
“This is my son, Sue.”

There is a tragic history here,
A lineage of names
That serve as cautionary tales.
We look to the Puritans,
Those joyful souls of the 17th century,
Who treated naming children
Like writing a sermon on a grain of rice.

Consider the poor soul born in 1640
Named “Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon.”
His friends, mercifully,
Just called him “Damned.”
Imagine the roll call at school.
Imagine fitting that on a driver’s license.
It was not a name;
It was a sentence of religious guilt
Handed down before the first diaper change.

Or his father,
“Praise-God Barebone.”
A name that sounds less like a human
And more like a command
Yelled during a tent revival.
These parents didn’t want children;
They wanted walking billboards
For their theological disputes.

History gives us
The Governor of Texas, James Hogg,
A man of power and influence,
Who looked at his beloved daughter
And with a straight face
Named her “Ima.”
Ima Hogg.
A joke told at the expense
Of a helpless infant
That lasted eighty years.
Though she lived a philanthropic life,
She walked into every room
Introduced as a complete sentence.

We see the modern equivalents,
The collision of celebrity culture
And madness.
The child named “Audio Science.”
The child named “Pilot Inspektor.”
The child named “Moxie Crimefighter.”
These are not names for people
Who have to file taxes.
These are names for comic book sidekicks
Or failed indie bands.

There is a court case in New Zealand
Where a judge had to intervene
Because parents named their child
“Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.”
Not a nickname.
The full legal designation.
The child was nine years old
Before the court took custody
Just to change her name
To something that didn’t sound like
A bad lounge act.

Sweden had to block a couple
From naming their child
“Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116.”
They claimed it was pronounced “Albin.”
This is not naming.
This is a cat walking across a keyboard.
This is a cry for help
Disguised as artistic expression.

There are parents who name children
After luxury brands
They cannot afford.
Little Armani.
Little Chanel.
Little Lexus.
Hoping the prestige rubs off
Like glitter glue.
But usually, it just sounds like
The inventory list
Of a pawn shop.

And what of the nature lovers?
They ignore the ugly parts of nature.
No one names their child
“Swamp” or “Fungus” or “Mosquito.”
It’s always “Wolf” or “Bear” or “Hawk.”
Predators. Apex creatures.
They want the child to be wild.
Then they panic
When little Wolf
Bites another kid at daycare.
“He’s just expressing his spirit,”
They say,
Ignoring the nominative determinism
They set in motion.

The parents think they are painting
A masterpiece.
They are crafting an identity
That will stand out
In the stack of resumes.
They want their child to be
The only one in the Google search results.

But they forget the Playground Test.
The cruel, Darwinian arena
Of the elementary school recess.
If a name can be rhymed with a bodily function,
It will be.
If a name can be twisted into an insult,
It will be.
If a name is too long,
It will be truncated
By a ruthless peer group
Into something manageable.
“Maximilian the Great”
Becomes “Max.”
“Seraphina of the Heavenly Host”
Becomes “Phina.”
The grandeur is stripped away
By the efficiency of friendship.

The parents spend nine months
Debating syllables,
Consulting astrologers,
Reading books with titles like
“100,000 Names for Your Little Star.”
They argue over the flow,
The rhythm,
How it sounds when shouted
From the back porch at dinner time.

And yet,
In the end,
The child defines the name,
Not the other way around.
You can name a boy “Hunter,”
But if he is a vegan pacifist
Who cries when he steps on an ant,
The name becomes a humorous footnote.
You can name a girl “Grace,”
But if she trips over flat surfaces
And knocks over vases in empty rooms,
The name becomes an affectionate irony.

The kid named “King”
Might end up working in middle management.
The kid named “Maverick”
Might love following the rules
And organizing spreadsheets by color.
The universe has a way
Of balancing the scales,
Of taking the parents’ grand pretensions
And smoothing them out
With the sandpaper of reality.

So the ink dries.
The form is filed.
The nurse looks at the chart,
Squints at the spelling,
And mispronounces it immediately.
It is the first of ten thousand times
The child will have to correct a stranger.
“It’s not pronounced like it’s spelled,”
The parents say, smiling,
Unaware that they have just assigned their child
A lifetime of explaining themselves
To baristas and bureaucrats.

But they look at the baby,
And in that moment,
The name fits.
Even if it is silly.
Even if it is archaic.
Even if it is a random noun
Picked out of a dictionary
During a frantic 3 AM brainstorm.
To them, it is music.
To the rest of the world,
It is just another reason
To double-check the spelling.