‘What’s that you just called me …?’

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‘What’s that you just called me …?’
‘What’s that you just called me …?’

‘What’s that you just called me …?’
‘What’s that you just called me …?’

I have a confession to make; something I have never told anyone before … so I’ll come straight out with it. I hated my name when I was going to school. I hated it because I was the only one. There were several Tommys, Johns, Olivers, Paddys and Michaels in Johnstown School at that time … but there was only one of me … me! The master never even had to use my surname; ‘tell Bernie to come in here’ was all he needed to say to a schoolmate.

I longed for another Bernie in the school, and one morning I thought I had him. Eddie Drumm had transferred to our school in 4th class and he often spoke about his brother Bernie. One morning a few of us were hurling a sponge ball around the playground before the bell, when lo and behold, I spied Eddie coming up Hynes’ Hill on his super duper bicycle, and riding alongside him was a strange boy, as big as the lads in our 6th class. Has to be Bernie, I thought to myself; but disappointment was to be my lot once more when the new pupil turned out to be Camillus Daly.

Back in those days, every child had an ordinary, pronounceable and spellable name. Later when we moved on to gracing the dancehalls with our talents; with the girls on one side of the hall and the boys on the other; and if you raised your voice and asked; ‘would you like to dance, Mary’, half the girls would turn round to see who was asking! Or if a girl was looking out for her friend’s brother and asked; ‘is Jimmy here’, the makings of a full team might take a step forward!

Moving on … and the first thing to say here is that in time I grew to appreciate my own name and eventually I wouldn’t swop it for any Jimmy or Joe. I certainly wouldn’t trade it for a lot of the names that new babies are saddled with these days. The more obscure and way-out the name, it seems the more that some modern parent relishes calling it to the rafters. ‘Come along now, Pandora!’ ‘Would you like another bag of crisps, Maverick? Do these parents never pause to ponder upon how their adult child may feel about the bizarre name their parent landed them with?

Our name is the most important thing about us. It bestows uniqueness and separates each one of us from the rest of the 8 Billion people we share the planet with. Of course names always went in and out of fashion – but at least they were real names. (Or the priest wouldn’t baptise the child). In the 1960s there were loads of Jackies, named after Jackie Kennedy and then we had a cluster of John Pauls in the 1980s to commemorate the two popes of that name. There were Kylies after you-know-who and now we have Rihanna.

Traditional Irish names are back in vogue and this is nice. Eunna, Fiadh, Caoimhe, Sadhbh, Rian and Oisin, all featured prominently on last year’s popularity chart. I’m delighted to see both Jack and Finn listed in the top ten – as I have one of each among my grandchildren! It is also amazing to see Seans and Paddys making a significant comeback.

We had a great bit of banter one night in the Squash Club, back in the day, when Mark made the case for children having a say in how the schools should be run – and whether they might reject a certain teacher or not. Nobody is laughing now, Mark, because what you promoted has pretty well come to pass! Now, isn’t a child’s name even more important than the above, so, considering that so many parents are getting it terribly wrong, why not delay officially naming the child until he or she reaches the use of reason? The baby might be just given a number for the first few years; A1, B4, Q6 and so on. Get the idea? Then when the children reach the age of seven, they get to choose a name? The kids would not do any worse than what an awful lot of parents are doing now; and they couldn’t blame anyone else in the following years. If a girl chose to be ‘Snow White’, or a boy announced he wanted to be ‘Rover’, what’s wrong with any of that!?

And now to finish on a more serious note; it may come as a surprise to you to learn that the most popular baby’s name in England and Wales last year, was Mohammad.

Should any mammy out there need help in finding a nice sexy, beguiling name for her son in 2025; she could do worse than looking no further than me …

Don’t Forget

A man has three names: The name he inherits, the name his parents give him, and the name he makes for himself.