I'm interested in setting my child up in the most favorable position I'm able to. Elementary, middle, and high school choices will all be determined by how
icy they are because, excluding genetic contributions,
our most lasting influence will be contingent upon the kinds of people we surround him/her with.
I'm soliciting advice on naming my firstborn from those who've taken the red-pill. Don't get the wrong impression--I'm not going to be doing much helicoptering, nor will my fiance (who has spent lots of time with my nephew, interacting with him in ways that have been very encouraging). We should do pretty well. But if I can engage in some favorable angling, I'm all for it.
I've come up with a few parameters so far:
- If it's a boy,
definitely no androgynous names, not even names that contemporarily still strike people as masculine, like Logan or Drew. With a few (I'm actually only aware of one, though I'd bet there are a handful of others) exceptions, the ratchet moves in only one direction. Names that undergo a sex change start out masculine and end up feminine--Sidney, Lindsey, Shannon, Lauren, etc began as men's names but have subsequently become girls' names. For boys,
Steve Sailer suggests going biblical, or at least medieval, so that its gender-certainty is securely moored in history. Sound advice. If it's a girl, well, we may shamelessly contribute to such onomastic disenfranchisement. You've been warned--give your boy a reliably male name.
- Avoidance of the most popular and most obscure. The latter is more important, as it potentially becomes a point of fun for other kids at my own's expense if he's introverted or not particularly popular. If he excels at something (or a host of things!) and is able to parlay that into higher social status, a unique name becomes a boon because it makes him more memorable (Mitt, Barack, Rush, etc) and thus further perpetuates his social advantage, but that's attainable without resorting to something potentially derisible like Moon Unit. Get the potential upside without too much risking the downside. It feels like the sweet spot is somewhere in the range of 100th-500th most popular name given to newborns for a boy, and probably in the 50th-100th for a girl, since consensus and normalness are more important for women than they are for men.
- Grab a name name whose popularity has yet to crest so he doesn't artificially appear older than he actually is. This is more relevant for a boy than for a girl, so that at 28 he could conceivably be guessed at a cool 23 or 24 rather than a creepy 32 or 33 by the 18 year-old girls he'll be chasing if he's his father's son. The opposite might even be the case for a girl, because if she looks ten years your junior but can subconsciously be thought of as only coming five years after you, it might elicit less jealousy and bitterness, respectively, in the men and women she knows.
If I'm overlooking something, do make me aware. Many of you are more experienced in this whole child-rearing thing than I am.
The top picks at this point are Sydney for daddy's little princess, and Carter or August for the surname's future standard bearer. Personally, I prefer the latter because it's just now beginning its cycle of rebirth--once all the old fogies who bear a name whose popularity peaked around the time they were born all die off and it exits living memory, the phoenix can rise again from the ashes of its great-great-grandparents (think Stella for a female example). Furhter, who doesn't want a son worthy of reverence and admiration? Even now at only
333th most popular, though, it's still perceived as being dangerously close to the perimeter of Moon Unit's territory, so I'm facing a lot of resistance to it. The more pedestrian Carter is an easier sell.
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