And so, after waiting breathlessly for days for the Royal Baby to arrive, the free world and all its office betting pools would have to wait a little longer still, it turned out.
The baby was here, a healthy boy. But the name: They were still working on that.
Names are worth taking your time with, apparently.
But at last, we had it. The world and His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge were officially introduced.
You have to admit, titles thrown in, it’s a lot of name to live up to. But as his parents surely already realize, it’s absolutely perfect.
Just what is this strange chemical process at work in how a name and its bearer grow to fit each other, are fused together until any other combination seems altogether unthinkable?
Have you noticed this?
I don’t really know how we settled on our daughters’ names; there’s no family history with either — we just liked them.
And they fit! My older daughter is Aubrey. I couldn’t imagine her any other way. Same with her sister, Melody.
Anyway, I had been thinking about these things, names and whatnot, when on Friday the paper received an announcement: Garth Brooks had welcomed his first grandchild, “Baby K.”
One thing he said stood out to me, in reference to his own children and, now, their children:
“We have always wanted them to be individuals and NOT be known as ‘someone’s daughters’.”
In other words, they have names.
In the act of naming, we confirm our children as wholly and forever individual. They are themselves and nobody else.
Inevitably, as they go along in life, people are going to put labels on them, or worse, reduce them to numbers.
But let the world take note, here and now. They are named.
Cue the old Jim Croce song. I doubt he was thinking of His Royal Highness, but the point’s the same.
What’s in a name? A lot more than you might think.
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