The Namesake

That’s my grandson- and future wearer of the Master’s hallowed green jacket- Sam.

He lives in Boston with his mother, Natasha, his father, Zach, and his three month old sister, Caroline, aka Carly.

 

This post is about how Sam got his name.

Last week the front page of the New York Times “Sunday Styles” section featured a story called “A Girl Named Lou.”

It was all about the hot trend in naming babies.  New parents are giving them gender-blind, unisex names like Quinn, Harper or Journey.

Or giving boys’ names to girls.

The article cited celebrities’ daughters like Jessica Simpson’s Maxwell and Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell’s daughter, Lincoln, as prime examples of this new fad.

(I guess the reporter, Alex Williams, couldn’t handle the yuck factor  and so he/she didn’t cite Gwyneth Paltrow’s Apple and Moses.  OMG.  ‘Nuff said about those choices.)

But it’s not just Hollywood celebrities setting the trend. I, too, am crazy about giving boys’ names to girls.  Always have been.  I think it’s adorable.

I went to New Trier with a girl names Jay Gleason.  She was named for her father and I never forgot her.  And  I also know darling girls named Michael, Bobbie, Billie, Stevie and a new precious arrival named Mickie.  So I have to give a big thumbs up to Carrie Fisher on her Billie Lourd and Drew Barrymore’s daughter, Frankie.

The Nanny Diaries Sidebar:  Well, I can’t honestly say I love giving boy’s unisex names. Back in the day, I had a nanny who had worked for the actress Susan St. James.  Her kids’ names were Sunshine and Harmony, Debbie the Nanny had told me.  Get the feeling Susan had them in the 70’s?

Any way, the article listed the ten most popular “post-gender” baby names in 2015.  Here they are.

(Along with Heidi Klum and her daughter, Lou.)

“Today’s parents have moved beyond the dichotomy of boy and girl names,” said Linda Murray, the editor in chief of Babycenter, which declared 2015 “the year of the gender-neutral baby” and published a list of suggested neutral names from Addison to Winter.

Gender-blind names like Madison or Blake might be given in order perhaps better equip girls to take on men in the workplace.

The article further went on to state that the most popular names today, however, continue to be Emma and Olivia for girls and Liam and Noah for boys.

But the story ended with this.

“Feminism is cool again, gay marriage is the law of the land and transgender celebrities have come into the mainstream,” said Pamela Redmond Satran, author of ten baby-naming books.

“So who knows? We may see the day when boys are named Caitlyn and girls are named Bruce, and nobody thinks twice.”

Now, getting back to this young man…

Sam was born in July of 2014.  My dad, Ben, had passed away in May, 2014.

And even though the name “Ben” did not appear on the list of hot, hot boys names, Natasha liked it a lot any way.

She loved her grandfather.

Here they are- both looking very serious.

Weightwatchers Sidebar:  It’s interesting to me to see this picture of my dad.  It’s 1978 and he was sixty and kind of out of shape.  That all ended in 1979 when Natasha was six months old.  We had rented a house in Palm Springs for the winter and it had a tennis court.

My dad came out to visit in February and decided to walk around it.  The slow run around it. Then jog around it.

He didn’t stop jogging until his late 80’s- and then only because dialysis had slowed him down.  He looked great ’til the end (94) as a result.

Anyway, all through the last months of her pregnancy, Natasha vacillated back and forth between her two favorite name candidates- Ben and Sam.

(Of course, at the time, I knew nothing about this  She was on radio silence about the whole name bit.  But the story came out when Sam did.)

Right down to the wire, poor Natasha could not choose between the two names.

And, as she was suddenly and scarily hustled off to an emergency C-section, she still had not made up her mind.

Ben or Sam?  Sam or Ben?

FINALLY, she came to a conclusion.

“His name is Sam,” she announced groggily to a worried/delighted new father, Zach.

(Who, two years later, is so proud of his clone.)

I liked the name “Sam” but I had to ask her why.

“‘Ben’ is the number one most popular boy’s name in Massachusetts,” she informed me. “I’m a teacher and I do NOT want him to be a ‘Benjie T.’ for the rest of his life because there are five other Bens in his class.”

I was startled.

“Wait.  What?  ‘Ben’ is the number one most popular name in Massachusetts?  I didn’t know that.  Are you sure?”

“Google it,” she stated firmly.

I did.

Read it here.

“But why?” I was still in the dark.  “I mean, Ben is a nice name and all, but why is it so popular?”

You’re going to have to ask these guys.

In case you can’t make out the photo stolen by a prying paparazzo lens, that’s New England Patriot’s quarterback- and god- Tom Brady, with two of his three children.

Daughter Vivian.

And son.

Ben.

My dad will just have to get over it.