The Name Game

Years ago She and I read a book on marriage that suggested spouses actually speak one another's names when addressing each other. Don't just refer to him/her, the book said, as: honey, darling, sweetie, baby, sugar or big stupid head (what She would sometimes call me affectionately as part of an inside joke), but say their name. There is power in a name (if you don't believe that then you must not have even gotten in trouble and had your mother call you by your full name). I love hearing my name come out of Her mouth. Although, when she writes about me, she simply refers to me as "B" which I absolutely love for some reason that even I'm not quite sure of. When writing, I refer to my wife as She or Her and my boys as the Oldest and Po. But names do matter. That's why in the early 80's a weight loss product was released, but failed miserably due to an unfortunate name coupled with bad timing. You have likely seen many ads for Dexatrim, but never AYDS diet chocolates. Now, all of this was written to get to the real point of my blog: I love names! I have a list of names in my phone right now. What are they for? Either I'll convince Her to convert our family into the Duggers (19&Counting) or else they will have to become names for pets. I just love names. Picking the names for our boys was one of my favorite things. I had a few original ideas (Wrigley) which She vetoed, and we even had a name picked out until the week before the Oldest was born (Tucker). I scoured through one of those 1,0001 baby name books (which now are like 1,000,001 baby names) before we went with one that we stumbled across in a Golf Digest. I love names. So here is my list of names I love and where they come from. Pet names: Tujague (pronounced "two-Jack", it's the name of a restaurant in Nola), speaking of which, I also love the name Nola for obvious reasons. Also there is Tipitina (a famous music venue in, you guessed it, New Orleans, which derives it's name from a Professor Longhair song by the same name), Boudin (a Cajun sausage pronounced "Boo-Dan", just because I love to say it), Orpheus and Endymion (two of my favorite Mardi Gras krewes), and finally there is Akasha (fictional Egyptian queen from a favorite book). I think when the boys grow up and leave the house She and I will just get a bunch of dogs so that I can use up all of the names I like. I do also like a lot of names for people too, but I don't anticipate having the privilege of naming any more children. But if I did, it would likely be Lola, Marley and Talulah for girls. Maybe that will be the names of my granddaughters and I can pile them in the truck with all the dogs, Tujague (the black lab), Nola (a teacup chihuahua for Her), Tipitina (an Australian shepherd), Boudin (a mutt), Orpheus (a chocolate lab), Endymion (a teddy bear dog) and finally Akasha (my Siberian Husky), and go riding dirt roads and smelling honey suckle. I fully realize this is likely the most bizarre, random, throw away blog I've ever written, but for whatever reason this is what was ricocheting around my brain today and you just happened to get caught in the crossfire.