It is one of the first things we stress about as parents. Along with the safety and health of our new bundles of joy comes the question, “What will we name our child?”
Naming our first came relatively easy for us. After much consideration, we agreed that Cooperton, where my father-in-law’s family made their homestead, and Cooperstown, home of the baseball hall of fame, had a kind of coincidental connection that we both liked, and decided “Cooper” would be the perfect fit. Brisco was a little harder. We were two days in the hospital and receiving pressure from the records’ department before we finally came to a consensus.
No matter what a parent decides to name her offspring, with time, each child’s personality soon reveals a plethora of alternatives that might have been a better fit. So what is in a name, really? Often times, the true insight into an individual’s personality may be more accurately seen by what he earns as a nickname.
From birth, we were blessed with two little characters. It wasn’t until they started to grow into their looks that we realized how true that statement really was. At about four months, Cooper, with his chubby cheeks and his big, round eyes, took on the name Spanky, after the precocious Little Rascal. At about a year, Brisco could have been mistaken for Bamm Bamm Rubble, neighborhood kid of the famous Flintstones; all he needed was a leopard-skin loin cloth and an oversized billy club. If we had been a little more ingenious, we might have found a way to make a buck or two because these kids of ours were dead ringers for their television twins.
I’m not sure if it was a cartoon craze or puppy love, but for some reason, Spanky turned into Scooby Doo and finally shortened to Scooby. As Brisco got older, he grew right into his four-legged nickname: Snoopy. And he has earned it, as he is always right in the middle of somebody’s business. It’s amazing that he is growing up so fast, but it is true, and in only a few short months he’s gone from canine to feline, as he is now, certainly, Cooper’s little two-legged Copy Cat.
Of course we never know what kids are going to call each other when they are learning to talk. They do the best they can, and the rest of us are left to interpret. For a long time, Cooper called his new little brother “B”, then Little B and finally, Bisco. To this day, I’m not sure if he can pronounce his brother’s name correctly. Brisco started off calling Cooper “TuTu”. “TuTu” has now evolved into “CooCoo”, which is one of my all time favorites and is actually a perfect fit for Cooper Dean most of the time.
Like all parents, there’s no telling what we might conjure up by mistake if we’re angry or frustrated, or if we just happen to get tongue tied. Sometimes it’s “Crisco”, or “Brickso”. Other times we get a “Booper”. A friend of mine warned me against naming my kid Cooper. She said she has a nephew named Cooper and all the little kids at school call him “Pooper”. Well, my kid calls himself “Pooper”, so maybe that won’t be such a heartbreaker for him.
Kids are smart; they catch on fast. The other day I said to Cooper, “Hey, get over here you little Cook-a-munga!” He thought I said, “Cooper-munga” and his quick little wit allowed him the come-back, “No, you get over here, you little Cook-a-momma!” Guess I had that one coming.
Sometimes, the nicknames we give our kids have little to do with their individual personality, but are more influenced by our own irritation and exhaustion with the exasperation of repetition. Imagine an afternoon, day, or an entire week of this: “Cooper, get down from there. Cooper, don’t jump on the bed. Cooper, get off your brother. Cooper, don’t put that in your mouth. Cooper…” How could a name that we so lovingly chose for our bundle of joy become a sound so terribly heinous that I could actually consider puncturing my own ear drums! The solution?
Pick a name. Any name will do. And in times of frustration…use it: Beak, Beako, Boo Boo, Booty, Nabisco. Coop, Coopster, Scooper, or Granddaddy’s favorite, Cooperton. Sounds crazy for sure, but it’s worth it to be able to lay those boys down at night and call them by name without gritting my teeth and cringing like nails on a chalkboard.
Whatever parents choose to call their kids, over time, you can bet it will be tweaked and tuned according to their growing minds and developing personalities. I decided a long time ago that Brisco was a name that we will just have to keep repeating until somebody does a remake of The Andy Griffith Show and revives ole scruffy Mr. Briscoe Darling. And that’s ok. I’m not so much concerned with what people call my children as I am about what they think of them.
Our first job as parents may have been to give our children names, but our most important task is to help mold their character.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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