March 28, 2024

Column: The name game

When it came to naming our kids, my husband and I didn’t have a very difficult time, at least for a girl name. Our oldest daughter is named after a famous Iowa public figure and our youngest daughter has a family name I also just really liked.

Because we didn’t find out our oldest daughter’s gender until she was born, we also had to come up with a boy’s name. It seemed like every name we liked was either already in our family, too trendy to actually name our kid or reminded one of us of someone from our past, ruling it out of contention.

We did finally settle on a name, but as luck had it, we never had to use it. Two girls later and our boy names were shelved, maybe for future pet use.

As a kid, I played with a lot of Cabbage Patch dolls and named each one of them. They were often named after my sisters, my babysitters’ daughter who I adored or a popular name I had heard on television or the radio. I had a Jolene, Missy, Allison, Ruby and Bianca among many others.

I’m sure when I was really little my names weren’t so precise, which is where I currently am with my girls. More often than not, their dolls or animals are named after a physical feature of the said toy.

The most important stuffed animal to my oldest daughter is her dog, Brown Puppy. Yep, you guessed it, it is a brown dog who also gets the privilege of wearing a Hawkeyes shirt. My youngest, on the other hand, has a multi-colored unicorn that goes by the name of Rainbow Stars Hearts. It took me a while to get that one down, but it stuck because it goes with us almost everywhere.

As we keep collecting animals and babies, the names get better and better. We have a Pinky, a pink turtle; Cutie, a baby leopard; Dotty, a baby cheetah; and Snuggles, which is the name of both a mini multi-colored unicorn and a ball-shaped, fluffy wolf.

Some of the animals come with names, thankfully, and if I am lucky the name is written on the animals tag. Tasha, Cara and Maggie all came named, adding to the list of identities I have to keep straight.

The girls have only had the opportunity to name two actual animals. I can’t give them a super hard time because I once named two different cats Dominic, but I may have given them some options so I wouldn’t have a Grayie on my hands.

We had one female cat and one male cat to name. The female cat was named Flowers, which isn’t terrible but isn’t the name I would have selected. The name for the male cat was a little more difficult because it was up to my then 3-year-old daughter. That was when I decided to step in a give her a couple of options, Oreo or Domino, since the cat was black and white in color.

To my surprise, she liked Domino the best and for a brief time we had Flowers and Domino to go along with our dog, Homer, who was named by my husband after the cartoon character, not the ancient Greek author.

As they get older, I’m sure their naming skills will evolve to who is famous in pop culture, like the many Dylan’s I had during the early 90s or the men and women they look up to. I am curious to see who it will be for them in the coming years.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson
at jpierson@newtondailynews.com