Gay Baby Names

A dear friend of mine and her husband (one of the gayest straight men I've ever met and I'm betting that he is very excited that he gets to carry a man purse now and call it a "diaper bag") welcomed their first child into the world and his name is Chance. I think it's really a different choice for a child's name. (Not bad different, like my grandmother used to say whenever she didn't like what you were wearing or your new haircut and she would say, "Well, that's different" but the tone was such that you knew she just hated it. This is not the different I meant although it's always the first thought that comes to my mind whenever someone says the word and I immediately get defensive. A Pavlovian response to be sure, all someone has to do is mention the word "different" and I immediately become defensive, hurt and start striking back with full force gay sarcasm. It can be minutes before I hear them say, "Scott, stop I really just meant the color of your shirt was different than anything I'd ever seen." Embarrassed, I do my best Emily Littella/Gilda Radner, "Oh, that's very different. Never mind.") But the more I heard this name, the cooler I thought it was and thought about how names can solicit such a response within us as to send our imaginations wild with what the name suggests the person is or in this case, is going to be when he's grown. Let's take this name, Chance. Chance is a kind of preppy guy who looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch sort, right? He's good looking and well liked with an easy manner about him, right? He's probably straight but cool that guys find him attractive too, not freaked out by it and doesn't exploit it. So in just the same way; I started to think about all the guys with names that say they're gay right from the get go. (Now true, some gays actually use their middle name to get even gayer than their name already is or there are some who just use the fullness of their name like Stephen instead of Steve or Phillip to gay it up but there are still plenty of people naming their kids names that come with lisp included too, you know, like Bryce.) Do these parents not know they're setting their kids up? Gay Baby Names - Don't Get Me Started!

Now before you all get outraged, get over it. And tell me you never thought it was "unfortunate" when a friend named their child, "Oscar" and all you could think of is the fact that he'll always be compared to the green Muppet that lives in a garbage can or Jack Klugman?

It's not just "gay" names I don't get. I don't get all the made up, pseudo-African names that people are making up left and right. You know like Aquansha or Dasooti. What are these people thinking? These are not people like poor NBA great Anferney Hardaway's mother who obviously thought she was spelling Anthony, no these people are really going out of their way to come up with stupid names that make no sense. And can anyone explain to me the whole apostrophe atrocities that occur like D'Onfre or D'Mia - me a don't understand. Finally there are the people who name their children after a product, like Lexus or Perrier because they think the names are "pretty" - dear God people, you have a child here, it's not a sparkling water and nine times out of ten they end up with the personality of a dead flashlight battery (size D). Not to mention the real tragedy which of course we all know is that they'll never be able to find a souvenir miniature license plate with their name on it when on vacation!

I was very fortunate that my mother's first choice of name for me got nixed at the last minute (though I think some of the gayness definitely remained). My name was going to be Seth. A nice name but can you imagine an effeminate boy saying over and over again, "Yeth my name is Seth?" (I can hear you laughing from here - I am too) This may be the only calamity I managed to avoid in my life but even if it's the only one, at least we know it was a good one. Having been given the name Scott there's really not much you can do to gay it up other than if I was a twink then I could use, "Scotty" but that's about it.

Some names are much more gayable than others. Let's play the gay name game, shall we? First you start out with a name and you gay it up to fit the gay stereotype. (Fill in additional stereotypes and names for fun)

Here we go - Michael

• Twink - Mikey
• Bear - Mike
• Corporate Gay - Michael

Here's another one - Robert

• Twink - Bobby
• Bear - Bob or Rob
• Corporate Gay - Robert

Now see if you can do one - (it's a little tougher and I'll put the answers in backward so you can guess first) - William

• Twink - (ylliB)
• Bear - (lliB)
• Corporate Gay - (mailliW)

Sometimes when I meet someone I really wonder how their parents knew that they were going to be gay when they gave them such a great gay name but most of the gays did it to themselves by getting a little too creative for their own good. You know the ones who choose the whole first initial and then middle name business because the first name is too common for them (i.e., Michael Blaine Smith becomes M. Blaine Smith) or the ones who initial themselves up to give a little acronym meets army kind of feel that usually ends in an "R" (i.e., T. R., J.R., etc.). No, we gays just don't know when to leave good things alone - if there's a couch we're putting contrasting throw pillows on it, if it's our name we're gaying it up. Although there's no denying that without their knowledge, sometimes parents help out with the initial canvas that is our name, which sometimes, we later redecorate. Gay Baby Names - Don't Get Me Started!

Read More Scott @ www.somelikeitscott.com

Although I wrote this blog a long time ago, it continues to be the most viewed of any I've ever written (and it's viewed A LOT) so I would love to know what brought you to this entry and what if anything you thought of it. Thanks for sharing - Scott