dog years: What's in a name?
April and I love yard sales, flea markets, and estate sales. It's actually one of the only things we have in common. Well, that and a deep love for me.
Anyway, back in '02 when April was pregnant we were yard-sailing around Raleigh and stopped at this neat old bungalow near 5 Points. Ape was into some folk art paintings that were leaning against an old bed frame, so I meandered off towards the books.
We were having a tough time with baby names and with April due in early May (she was two weeks early) we were really feeling the pressure.
So, I'm sitting on the grass next to a pile of books that were stacked on a comforter and I pick up this baby book from the early 90's. I thumb through it...now we know we are having a girl, but I'm still curious about the boy names. I liked Malcolm and Duncan. And it's no secret I want to name my son after my dad. But, I relented and then went straight to the girl names. Now we had baby name books out the ying-yang, but nothing leapt out at us.
Today, however, I went to the back of the book to the names of "unknown origin", names with little or no history or definition. I found "Ava". The definition was "little bird" and the origin was "possibly Germanic".
Wow, I thought. April's dad loves birds. And "Ava" sounded good with my last name, which isn't easy. Besides, it sounded like an old lady name and I dug that I'd only heard of Ava Gardner. Ava Darden...Ava Gardner....sure, it fits. April loved it. I loved it.
Boom. Set.
This morning a friend emailed me a list of top baby names from 2006. "Ava" was number five. I googled baby names and learned that it's projected to be the number one name this year.
This made me angry. If you know my kid, you know that she is one of a kind. All kid's are really. But I wanted her to have a special name, to stand out. Thankfully, her name doesn't actually determine this. The thought, oh the thought of all the country music (Faith Hill) and Reese Witherspoon fans that made the name "Ava" so bloody popular still irks me though. Both of them named their daughters Ava the year prior to my daughter's birth.
My name is Jason and there were tons of us in the seventies. I grew up in three that followed me around from class to class from kindergarten to high school. Each one of us was our own person. None were confused with one another. This should be my reassurance that the name we chose for my daughter won't define her; won't lump her in with the (apparently) vast army of "Ava's" being turned out over the past five years.
People will know her for who she is, not what she's called (this is the self-assurance part of my diatribe).
But, knowing this won't keep shivers from my spine every time I hear "Ava!" screamed across a playground and five kids look up like anxious ground hogs.
So, to the expectant mothers of the world (and most specifically the metropolitan south east) the quota for "Ava's" is full. Move along, move along.