Giving kids dumb names

Let's build on the last post a little.

Go to any playground with your kids and you will hear dumb, pretentious name after dumber, more pretentious name being trotted out: "Soleil! Time to eat your rice cakes and drink your vitamin water!"

"China! Don't you dare take off your helmet!"

Yesterday at a museum I heard a guy call his kid "Reno." Honestly, what are these parents thinking? And why are so many such lemmings that they employ the same logic? I'm not talking semi-ridicule-worthy, like Jaden or Tanner. I just think of those as being left-coast names.

There are two modern methods for naming babies in Oregon:

1. Choose an awkward last name and insert it: Sellers, Rasmussen are two actual ones my kid's heard at school. So if you're thinking of a name for your baby, why not just grab a phone book and have at it.

I'm sure there are parents out there naming their kid Clooney or Pitt or Selleck in the false but cute hope that such a name will help them get over the hump of having two fools for parents. I've heard the name "Diesel" out there, too, which is extra-unfortunate because the lummox actor he is named after is a laughingstock. But if he's named after the totally rad, smelly fuel, then I am willing to eat crow. Kudos to you for having such a cool name, kid.

2. Unfold a map or open an atlas and jab your finger. Extra points (deducted) for geographical features. Native Americans were at least imaginative with Running Bear and what-not. Naming your kid Dallas or Sumpter isn't anything.

Wait. Yes it is. It is something to mock.

The latter is also how people here name their dogs, by the way. There seems to be a glaring lack of imagination when people name their pets (or kids), oh, say, "Hoodoo," a local ski facility (or "ski hill" in the lexicon) as well as at least one unfortunate dog.

Guess what? Naming your kid after a number is not hip. Didn't you see that episode of "Seinfeld"? All of your neighbors did, considering how much they STILL invoke the show, and it's been 10 years since its demise. But it's not "Seinfeld" they're laughing at -- it's you.

The funny thing about the ubiquitous name McKenzie is that it's both a river and a functional last name (e.g., Bob and Doug), so you're killing two birds with one stone. Inbred, retarded birds, perhaps, but still.

For all I know, this naming thing is a problem back east, too. I've heard there's been an explosion in strange, almost psychotic doggy love -- just like here -- but I'd wager that Oregon is on the leading edge of both these trends.

Baby names: Yet another reason smug Oregonians may want to rethink their pride just a little.