Name the Lil' LLamabutcher

Allright, we're at crunch time and I'm offically stuck in the name front on the name for the little LLama due on Monday.

Folks, I need help. In a bad way.

I've been stuck on "Elvis Agamemnon (LLamabutcher)" and needless to say, this isn't going over well with the Dear One. She is quite tolerant with me, though, and quite amused over the concept of as she puts it of "you and your imaginary bloggo friends." Last night she suggested that I just solicit ideas from you guys, so from her lips to my MT, here goes nothing.......

I'd like to throw it open to you, our dear and loyal readers. What the heck should I put in the name list?

Here are the parameters: he's a boy. He's the fourth kid. Eldest daughter (8) has a Jane Austen protagonist's name; older brother (6) is named after our third Chief Justice; younger older daughter (2) is named after a large city in New South Wales that's not Sydney (all three of these are family names).

Other parameters: my wife and I both have issues with our own names. Speaking for myself, let's just say if you were born in 1966 and named "Steve" you faced twelve years of schooling in which you were regularly one of at least half a dozen "Steves" in your class each year, so that it wasn't just enough that you were "Steve B." or even "Steve Br." but that you would become "Steve Bra." (Damn that "Steve Brown! To hellllllllll!) Try and do that to a ten year old, and is there any wonder he's writing under the nom de blog "LLamabutcher"? (Insert Judge Smails' "Ehhhhhhhhmmmmm?" here) Let's just say it's a miracle I'm not heading to the nearest library clock tower with a bundle of "curtain rods" under my arm......

So anyhoo, them's the stakes. Personally, I'm looking forward to about 70 years from now, and getting the chance to listen to young mothers as I'm wheeling around in my geriatric flying wheelchair (would it be then a wingchair? Where the hell is Reynolds when you need him!) and hearing them talk about how "the old-fashioned names are back in," and looking at these mothers of 2075 smiling at their little Brandi's, Tiffani's, and Kristal's. Lately it seems that my 6 year old son has four friends named Owen, two named Clay in his Sunday school class, plus assorted Cooper's, Will's, Henry's, and Alex's galore. And since as Jordana and I have been joking about that our kids attend Hippie Commie German schools, our kids have friends named Range, Rain, Skye, Ezra, Essau......

And what's the deal with naming your kid "Chrystal?" I mean, if I wanted to name my child after a wildly expensive liquid that makes all the ladies go crazy, I'd name it "HP Inkjet Ink (LLamabutcher)."

We also want to avoid the whole "Z" phenomena: I have four friends from grad school whose eldest sons are named Zach. I mean, what the heck's the deal with that? I mean, are there that many six year olds running around named "Screech" or "A.C", or "Mister Belder"? And did that many girls lose their virginity down in the rec room when "90120" was on the tee-vee that they need to name their sons "Luke"? Funny, I have yet to see a single "Cosmo," "Jerry," or "Elaine" (let alone many Judy's, Robert's and Robin's) in the pre-school set amidst a sea of "Luke's", so I guess that says something about the relative subliminal-influence-of-the-tee-vee-on-during-sex power of "Saved by the Bell" and "Beverly Hills 90120" versus "Seinfeld" and "The Newshour."

Who knew that "Nick-at-Night" causes fertility?

Okay, if it were up to me (and it's not, of course: it's much more of a "look at the kid in the nursery and you know what the name is" sort of thing for us) this is what I'd go with:

Calvin.

I've only known two Calvin's in my life, one was a bit of a nutter in Robbo's fraternity, and the other was a dearly loved professor in law school. But while certain names become trendy because they are featured on the tee-vee or in media, others seem to have the opposite effect, some sort of unpopularity hex placed upon them (and I'm not talking about "Orenthal James Simpson (LLamabutcher)" or "Scott Peterson Stalin (LLamabutcher)" as some helpful nutters over at Sadie's place suggested). For example, one of my other favorite ideas was:

Clifford

and this is a no-go because it triggers one of two things, depending on which groups you run with, either cutting into the theme song of "I luv Clifford, the big red dog!" or a really, really bad impersonation of John Ratzenberger doing "Hey, hey, ahhh, Normie!"

The other problem we run into is with my last name: it's a Hugenot one (which should explain my charming personality and my willingness to play nicely with others.....), and has a double dipthong in it---a syllable beginning in a "b" and ending in a hard urrr and a syllable ending in an "aaauh" separated by a friendly guttural "g." Basically, you pronounce it using similar motions necessary to hork a large piece of flem from the back of your throat.

So this rules out first names with a "Br" combination in them as being basically child abuse: Bruce, Byron, Robert, etc.

So, here's my unedited list, roughly categorized by genre:

Heroes of the republic:
Henry Knox (LLamabutcher)
Nathaniel Greene (LLamabutcher)
Hugo Lafayette (LLamabutcher)
Theodore Roosevelt (LLamabutcher)
Merriwether Lewis (LLamabutcher)
Alexander Hamilton (LLamabutcher)
Henry Abraham (LLamabutcher)

(and yes, since my other son is named after the third Chief Justice, I have considered "Thurgood Marshall (LLamabutcher)")

Heroes of the LLamabutchers:
Snake Pliskin (LLamabutcher) (okay, I'm kidding about that one)
Carlton Fisk (LLamabutcher)
Conan Barbarian (Llamabutcher) (now if I could sneak that one by the Dear One while she's still on the painkillers....)
Buckaroo Banzai (LLamabutcher)
(and yes, I can hear the Leather Penguin shouting for "Bill Buckner (LLamabutcher)" and the only thing I can say is "Super Choke Jeter Stinks (LLamabutcher)" was already taken)
Magnum P.I. (LLamabutcher) (because I think having two middle names is pretentiously cool, even if they are "Private" and "Investigator")
Ferris Bueller (LLamabutcher)

With any of these, you are really giving the boy a leg up, because when it comes time to apply for college, that annoying "Name something you've had to overcome in your life" essay already has a preset topic!

Things that are definitely NOT an option:

Duran Duran (LLamabutcher)

Mixing "Heroes of the Republic" with "Heroes of the LLamas," I suggested last night to the Dear One "DeWitt Clinton (LLamabutcher)" as a means to not only honor one of New York's scheming early governors, but also to commemorate the great sacrifices made to our great country by Joyce DeWitt in her bold portrayal of "Joyce" in Three's Company.

And yes, if you hold up a mirror to my forehead, you can read "Revereware--Makers of Fine Frying Pans since 1789" stamped across the lump on my noggin.

Some family names to play with:
Farrell
Sullivan (yeah, I've got the nasty Irish-Hugenot mixing, which would explain the horse-pill sized antidepressants now, wouldn't it?)

Some names the Dear One likes:
Walker
Quentin
Colin

Now by doing this, I realize I'm opening it up to INDC Bill's first comment, which will be "Why don't you name him after his father, "FedEx Driver (Llamabutcher)" to which I give the hearty LLama Orgle-off middle hoof salute. But these are the risks I'm willing to take.

Don't make him go through life as "Elvis Agamemnon."