Could I Have Soda, Seven, Or Even Apple Please?!?

I ought to make some enemies with this one.

But I can't take it anymore.

I absolutely despise the baby names selected by my generational peers.

I mean I despise them. REALLY despise them. More than bicyclists and anal fissures.

I'm not sure when I first noticed this and why it bothers me so much. Like anything that others like, why can't I just let it go? As I have morphed into middle age, I have let the inane actions, interests, and habits of others annoy me much less frequently. Sure, the movie going habits of America fascinates me and the love that still exists for things like 24, 80s comedies, classic rock, and Bill Belichick annoy me beyond belief.

But for the most part, I can let stuff go now. While James Petterson books, Ugg Boots, and chain restaurants certainly aren't for me, I understand the appeal/ease/practicality of them all.

But I cannot excuse the baby names. I want to. I try to. But I cannot.

I've tried to understand why the annoy me so much. Is it the type of person who would name their kid Jaxson (#6 on the list of 2008 Most Popular Boy Names) that annoys me? Is it the fact that The Hills is now not only influencing fashion, but names (Brody is #45 on the list)? Or is it the fact that an Eric Clapton song is the best my generation can do for inspiration (Layla: #24)?

Whatever it is, I can't take it.

But more to the point, how can OTHERS take it? Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Where is the originality of my generational peers that I love and respect so much? We are so many things. We are great actors like Pitt, Leo, Depp, and Tiffani Amber Thiessen. We are great musicians like The National, Coldplay, and the guy who sang "Here Comes The Hotstepper." We wrote Twilight, Harry Potter, and that really great book where if you think it, it will happen.

We are the same people that made TV On The Radio's Dear Scientist the album of the year in Spin AND Rolling Stone. We are the generation that created Lost, Seven, the Scene It? board game, google, all those awesome VW commericals, and The BK Triple Stacker. We elected the first black president, the first female Speaker of the House, and we got Donald Rumsfeld fired. We perfected texting, inventing beer funnelling, and took drinking games to a new level. We are great.

Except when it comes to names.

We (and I mean the collective, societal, we) seem to only like very specific names.

For example, we love names that end in an nnn sound. Be it Aiden (your #1 ladies and gentlemen), Ethan (#2), Kaden (#4), Brayden (#6), Landon (#8), Madelyn (#3), Caitlin (#13), Addison (#14), Benjamin (#12), Gavin (#15), or Tristan (#19), we really seem to love that hard N sound and I'm not sure why.

We have also taken a liking to biblical names (I blame the stupid south for this) like Elijah (#17), Gabriel (#16), Jacob (#7), and Noah (#3). Is this because so many of us Gen Xers struggle with religion and what it means to us and so this is how we make up? Or do we just like guys with wizard beards who like to ride around in big boats with multiple sets of animals?

And then there's the girls names. Now, I know that it is pretty much only women who read fiction, but do they only read Harlequin Romance novels? Because when I see names like Bella, Peyton, Scarlett, and Charlotte, all I can think of is these women in mid 19th century garb getting pounded by the chimney sweeper's purple headed warrior in a field of barley.

Or perhaps the stripper culture- which has made Jenna Jameson a household name- has so infested our society that we think Ruby, Brooklyn, Aurora, Jazmine, and Izabella (all in the top 50) are all acceptable names? Do the parents of these daughters WANT to see their girls swinging around on a pole in 18 years as Warrant's "Cherry Pie" booms from the speakers? Because you are pretty much choosing your destiny for your daughter when you drop Aurora on her shortly after she fires out of the birth canal. Hopefully, the parents were just big Foo Fighters fans, but I'm not holding my breath.

And when we are not dropping stripper or bible names on our kids, we seem to like the names of people from Arthur Miller plays (Abigail: #5), curmudgeonly British bands (Liam: #9), Matt Damon and Ben Affleck movies (Will: #21), and MTV Shows (Aubrey: #15). We also get influences from JD Salinger (Holden. Are people aware he's narrating from a loony bin?), Milwaukee Brewer first basemen (Cooper), state capitals (Austin), Peanuts Cartoons (Lucy), and Roger Clemens (Kole, Kadence, Kaden... Why does everyone love strikeouts so much?!?).

And when we're out of inspiration, we make stuff up like Colton (is that an engine part?), Fynn, and Asher (did they think that former A List Guy on Punk'd whose now married to a coug was Asher, not Ashton?)

Of course, I understand that people want to be different. That much is obvious. I also understand that as we age, we find "old" names to be hilarious and at times, unusable (at my uncle's funeral a couple of weeks ago, we found out that my uncle through marriage had a sister named Priscilla whom everybody called Pussy... True story. Even my mother laughed.), but isn't there some sort of compromise? While I anticipate that Blanche will never return and that Dick (my middle name btw) has been retired for good, what ever happened to Tom, Matt, Brian, Kevin, Jen, Sarah, or Lauren? Or even the less heard, but still popular names of our youth like Derek and Leslie? Where did those go? Are they so awful? Or are they just so... Regular.

And I think that's it. My generational peers (who are now more educated, more wealthy, more aware) don't want their kids to be... Heaven forbid... REGULAR! Everyone wants their kid to be talking first, pottying first, or reading first (Yes Petey and Paula Parent, we understand your child is so smart... We've never heard anyone say anything BUT their child is smart). They want their kids to have SOME talent that's why we run around driving our kids to piano, karate, dancing, hockey, and guitar. And what better way to insure your kids success than to give them a GREAT, ORIGINAL, NOT REGULAR name?

Because while we could all name an awesome Darren (McFadden), Kim (Kardashian), or Amy (Adams), we all somewhere in our lives met a horrible Darren, Kim, or Amy. Maybe Darren was the kid who smoked during lunch and flunked out of your high school; Kim was the girl who had that really big blumpkin ass; and Amy was the girl who had her period on the chair in sixth grade.

But whatever each of these names lives in infamy in our respective minds for, we CANNOT get that out of our heads. And so why would we want to call our daughter for breakfast every morning by a name that reminds us of the kid who was thrown in the trash barrel at lunch in sophomore year?

And so that part, I get. But I wish we could really get over that because all the cutesy Irish names with the hard N sound are making me really sick. And I just wish that everybody realized that their Caleb, Connor, Sophia, and Emma will be the next generations Bob, Brian, Sue, and Nicole. They will be just regular, common names, held by regular, common people (name your next kid Mitch... No one will have it!). Let's just hope for the sake of all the Ava's (the number one name in America for 2008 AND 2007) out there, that Ava doesn't suddenly become slang for fuck.

"See that hottie in the little skirt over there?!? I Ava'ed the SHIT out of her Friday night!"

Because if that happens, it's bye, bye Ava because you've become the new Dick.