March 01, 2006

You Named Your Baby Hosken?

As a new father, I'm well aware of how stressful and confusing it can be coming to a decision on what to name your new child. You want to be creative and original but you also don't want your son or daughter to spend their childhood years dodging spit balls and punches because you named them after a kitchen appliance.

If you're a rabid sports fan like me, there's a good chance that you've at least considered naming your first-born after your favourite athlete. If you're lucky enough to have a son, then by all means name him after your favourite Jay, but please, for the love of all things holy, avoid the following names at all costs.

New Dad's Guide to the Least Popular Blue Jay Baby Names

Hosken (Powell) - You're sure to get points for originality here, but what the hell is a Hosken? I can't find it anywhere in my Big Book of Baby Names. In fact, my on-line search failed to find any kind of history or meaning behind the name. I can't even find a single person other than Hosken Powell with the same first name. You might as well make up a new word and throw it on the birth certificate.

Rance (Mulliniks) - It's supposed to be short for Laurence, but I don't think his parents got the memo. Luckily for him, he was born with a weightlifter's physique and a model's good looks, so I'm sure he didn't get picked on in school.

Homer (Bush) - I remember the first time Homer Bush entered my world. I was at a Jays-Yankees spring training game at Legend's Field in Tampa Bay. Prior to the game, the Yankees handed out their award for the most valuable player of their spring training season. The winner was #69, Homer Bush. I thought for sure someone was playing a joke on the crowd (I kept looking around for the hidden cameras). I thought there's just no way that there's really a baseball player named Homer Bush who wears jersey #69 (on sober second thought, I wonder if he was actually wearing #69, or if that was just some kind of Budweiser-sponsored dream sequence).

Candy (Maldonado) - His actual first name is Candido, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable. As a general rule, you should try to avoid giving your son a name that sounds like a character from HBO's Cathouse.

Dick (Schofield) - I realize it's short for Richard, but at what point does someone willfully accept people calling them Dick?

Rico (Carty) - In 1991, Rico was listed as the 587th most popular boys name in the US. Also in 1991, Ecuadorian-born Gerardo became a chart-topper after issuing a single called "Rico Suave". By 1998, it had plummeted to the 987th most popular boys name. I don't need to draw a graph to show the correlation between the two, do I?

Just missing the cut were Ernie, Roy Lee, and Doyle. Did I miss any?

2 Comments:

At 1/3/06 9:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had a cat named Mookie.
Hell, it was that or Mazzilli.

 
At 1/3/06 9:51 AM, Blogger Another Chris said...

Those two will always be linked in Blue Jay lore. All it took was Jeff Musselman to pry them from the Mets.

Now, a post for Blue Jay pet names might be a good idea.

 

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