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    Friday, April 26, 2024

    Rick's List — New Trends in Baby Names Edition

    About three years ago, I published a List inspired by the insanely funny "Key & Peele" sketch comedy show — specifically, a series of bits about (fictional) player introductions at college football bowl games. As I wrote at the time: "(The K&P routines were) a decidedly edgy and delicate concept because the humor was very ethnic and depended on certain creative and distinctive names typically found in African-American culture."

    Thus inspired — and being a white guy — I ran my All-Ivy League roster of (real) white football players whose names were so preppy that I couldn't stop laughing at the inanity. God forbid Mom & Dad — someone like Baron & Lady Dunwick-Feather XI, I assume — should name their born-rich sons something pedestrian like Buddy, Ace or Tommy.

    In recent days, this subject of peculiar kid-naming occurred to me again as judges are starting to sentence the participants in the so-called Operation Varsity Blues admissions scandal — where even more rich people tried to bribe their precious childrens' entry into elite colleges.

    Isabella Rose Giannulli and Olivia Jade Giannulli, for example. The sisters' parents are actress Lori Loughlin and retired Monster Truck racer Hack "Bulldog" Giannulli, and the girls may not get into the Schools of Their Dreams because of Mommy and Daddy's meddling. By the way, Giannulli's first name is actually "Mossimo" and he's a fashion designer, not a Monster Truck pilot.

    My hopes are that, when Lori is released from prison several years from now, stipulations of her parole include that A) her husband can only design T-shirts for country & western singers and B) Isabella Rose must legally change her name to "Agnes-Velma" and Olivia Jade must change her name to "Sugar-Pie."

    There's even more recent news in the world of kid-name-kookery. It comes to us courtesy of, again, football. This time, it's in the NFL, where there's a trend in starting quarterbacks who happen be named after mundane Everyman jobs. Very retro. I like it!

    We have Cleveland Browns QB Baker Mayfield — likely christened in the hopes that the young fellow would grow up to be a pastry chef or perhaps drive a bread truck. And we also have Jacksonville Jaguars upstart Gardner Minshew. I suspect his folks envisioned a career for their son mowing retirees' yards or, perhaps more ambitiously, being one of those upstanding small town citizens whose front yard tulip displays will be the talk of the town with the dawn of each new summer!

    I hope the Everyman Worker trend continues, and let me be the first to offer some down-to-earth suggestions for new parents whose strapping baby boys might grow up to hurl 75-yard laser spirals in the pros.

    1. Plumber Taylor

    2. Electrician Jamison

    3. Roofer Gerron

    4. Mechanic St. Norman

    5. Sheetrocker Hendrickson

    6. Custodian Carmichael

    7. Day-Laborer Ralston

    8. Pitmaster Hotchkiss

    9. Buddy Ace Tommy Crenshaw

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