ELLE
The winds of change are blowing in the Hollywood Hills. First, with the birth of Sofia Richie Grainge’s daughter Eloise, and now with the announcement of Hailey and Justin Bieber’s son Jack – it appears that the days of naming children after random nouns and adjectives might, finally, be numbered.
To see a celebrity baby name announcement that is not inspired by a vegetable, weather pattern, or sound, is a welcomed change. In an ocean of children named after cities, animals, or directions, the name Jack stands out for its refreshing unpretentiousness. Jack is a solid appellation. It doesn’t age and transcends socio-economic standing. Everyone has fancied a Jack or two in their lives. They are Jacks-of-all-trades, Jack-the-lads, Jumping Jack Flashes. From Jack Sparrow to Jack White to Jack Kerouac to Jack O’Connell, they are a gang of lovable rogues.
I have always wanted to have a son called Jack. I welcome the mischievous spirit that a Jack would bring. I’d expect a son named Jack to be akin to Ferris Bueller – bunking off school in such a charming way that it would be impossible to stay angry with him. I suspect he’d accidentally break a few windows that he’d fix before I ever knew about them and get out of all kinds of jammy situations with a wink and a smile. But, alas, my brother-in-law is called Jack, and I could not bring myself to have to constantly clarify if I were talking about a man or a toddler as their interests would probably be comparable and it would become confusing.
Legend has it that my brother-in-law tried to burn down a loo at boarding school in order to get expelled and go home, so maybe there should only be one Jack per family. Surprisingly he was not successful in his attempt to set fire to water, but it was, nevertheless, a very Jack thing to do.
As a person with a somewhat rarer name, I will admit that there are some benefits to having a less mainstream moniker. Getting a Gmail address, for example, is very easy when no one else shares your name. Same goes for an Instagram handle, Twitter name, or whichever social platform you find yourself on. If you Google me, I am easy to find. I will not be mistaken for anyone else, and I do not, like my son, inadvertently share the exact same name as a murderer. There are no generalisations made about my name, it is mine to use freely in whichever way I please. Should I ever be hit by a bus and wake up with the ability to sing, I could become a performer and go by a single name.
There are downsides, however. First, no one knows how to pronounce it. A few boldly try; two have only ever got it right. A surprising number think that my mother hated me enough as a newly-born baby to call me Eyelid. I also live in a strange and narcissistic paranoia that if people badmouth me in public, the ears of others I know in their vicinity will prick up and overhear everything. As though my name is some kind of gossip bat signal the likes of which a Lucy or Charlotte or Sarah wouldn’t have to deal with. I feel at risk of gaining some kind of notoriety, be it good or bad, with a name that sticks out like a sore thumb.
I once interned at a fashion magazine in New York and they used my email address as the go-to intern one for several years after. I still wake up in cold sweats playing out worst-case scenarios of heated email exchanges that were had in my name. I imagine the most hostile emails being rattled off to high fashion PR teams by an overworked intern who underestimates the belligerence of ALL CAPS. It feels like a kind of identity theft where your cash is safe, but your reputation is destroyed. Does anyone at Miu Miu rue the day I was born? Am I a persona non grata at Prada? Does someone at Dolce detest me? Perhaps it is best that I don’t know.
One of the good things about my name is that there’s no one famous who has it. A hurdler popped up a few years ago, but that’s about it. It’s not like the recent wave of babies called Jagger or Bowie or Sienna: an entire generation of children whose names immediately conjure up incredibly specific images of incandescently cool people doing iconic things. Are they doomed to failure or is it somehow a fait accompli that they will eventually embody the names bestowed upon them? Like being heavily tattooed, it would seem that certain professions would be closed to people with these types of names. As though they have been marked at birth to only be able to work in the arts, with plants, or via the medium of dance. It feels wrong to imagine finding a Jagger working in a laboratory or a Bowie doing your taxes or a Sienna working in customer services. But, give it 20 years and they will all be sending us letters from the council, reminding us which days the recycling bins are collected.
When I named my children, I did consider some colourful variations and deviations from the norm. But, invariably, I always felt like I’d feel a bit insufferable yelling out some ancient Norse name in the bread aisle at Tesco’s. You also have to work with your partner’s own set of rules and regulations when it comes to baby names, and that in itself is its own little dance. The moniker Macarena. An uncoordinated tennis match of names being lobbed across the net, only to be immediately volleyed back by way of a childhood foe, office pervert, or dreaded boss.
It appears to be a celebrity rite of passage to name children strange things; as though success dictates that the famous must have a brood of tiny people named Celery, Swoosh, and Velcro. It ostensibly seems as though they deliberately choose the most unhinged thing that they can think of as some kind of performance art piece which we – the ordinary – just can’t understand. As if it is a test, like the secret word to enter a members-only club. As though they know something we don’t, and, in the future, success will be limited to those named Windy Day, Sellotape, and Enema.
It feels long overdue to have a resurgence of normal names in celebritydom. It was inevitable that they would, eventually, run out of random words to re-style as names. A kind of eventuality that normality would become radical, and that good, solid, names would make a comeback. Names that have withstood the test of time and are rooted in history, with a roster of previous characters attached to them. We are still waiting with baited breath for the names of Suki Waterhouse and Sienna Miller’s daughters, but I suspect we might be looking at a very trendy Mary and Susan. You heard it here first.
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