The Rules About Names

It seems I've heard a lot of strange names lately. Perhaps it's because my wife is a teacher and has students with all sorts of strange names. Perhaps it's because I've recently finished reading Denis Leary's Why We Suck, which ponders, along with other things, what reasons Angelina Jolie could possibly have for adopting Ethopia one kid at a time and giving them goofy names. In an effort to put my thoughts in order, I present to you the rules about names.

First, let's get rid of some of the unbearibly goofy ones. There shall be no times of day (Dawn), months (June) or days of the week. Hence, my girl will not be named Friday.

Units of measurement (metric or imperial) are right out, Miles.

Some flowers are acceptable, Lily, as long as they do not imply anything else, Pansy, are two long and/or hard to spell (Chrysanthemum). My wife has a hard time saying Rhododendron, so I don't need to worry about that one.

There will be no random nouns, River, and nothing that I can't spell, Neve with an 'Mh' (seriously, there is at least one that I know of).

Some biblical names are fine, Daniel, but may need to be shortened to be useful, Joshua can be Josh, Jeremiah can be Jerry. But let's keep the bible-thumping down to a minimum, Elijah and Ezikiel.

Some names have already been used ad nauseum so I will skip them as well. Mike, John, Sarah, Mary, Emily, and Dave (most especially Dave), you are excused. I knew a Dave in University who went by 'Trout' to allow him to be easily seperated from the seven or eight other Daves kicking around. But I digress.

A few have been forever lost to us by celebrities behaving badly. Britney, Miley, Mariah, and various Jessicas, Tom and (Dr.) Phil.

Some names depend upon the last name as well. Since mine is Richards, Richard, Rick, and Rory are right out.

By similar logic, I do not appreciate the use of last names as first names, McKenzie.

Some names that have been uncommon will probably become overused by reference to famous people, Emma, and should therefore be avoided.

Since I'm English-Cananadian I'll stick to names that reflect that, so no way José. Select regionally appropriate names to suit.

There should be no need for punctuation in personal names. I'll pass on D'Brickashaw (or D' anything for that matter, D'Anna in BSG always bothered me, I would write it Deanna).

Can't choose? Please don't hyphenate. It is a bit sad to see someone saddled with an overly long or goofy name because the parents could not reach a decision. Mary-Lou. Jean-Marc.

Some emotions and virtues make for good names, Joy and Charity. Some do not, Chastity and Temperance.

I've never been crazy about Seth because having your kid share a name with the Egyptian god of chaos seems to be tempting fate a little too much.

I'm sure there are many situations I have not covered but a little common sense does wonders. The best trick I've heard is to put 'King' or 'Queen' in front of the name and saying that combination out loud. If it sounds dumb, then that one can be tossed out.

The Apple Netbook and other mythical beasts.

Rumors have been swirling for some time now that Apple will jump into the pool with Acer, Asus, Lenovo, et al., and release a netbook (a small, low powered, inexpensive mini-laptop, typified by the Asus Eee PC, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention). The Apple netbook rumour seems to have combined with an even more persistent Apple rumor, that of the Apple Tablet, another mythical beast that would see the company scale up its market-leading touchscreen technology.

Although Apple has been typically mum on the subject, a quick Google News search turned up 2,574 articles on the subject for the past week alone. This included, interestingly, an article from theStreet.com about why such a venture would fail, citing Apple's belief in design over competitive pricing and the low sales of various other tablet PCs on the market.

I'm admittedly Apple-obsessed, something which started with an iPod Classic a couple of years ago and has grown with my purchase of an iPhone with that wonderful touchscreen interface (albeit with some nagging quirks, most of which appear to be addressed by the 3.0 firmware). I don't own any Macs, however, because my budget simply does not allow for it. With the current generation 13-inch MacBook still going for $1400 (Canadian), I would hugely appreciate the appearance of a netbook, even if it was priced in the high part of the range, say around $800.

I'm not sure if I buy the converegence of the netbook and tablet rumours (although either would be sweet), but Apple is the best equipped to pull it off from a design standpoint, but I get the feeling that I will still be priced out of the Cult of Mac.