Just another face in the crowd

A piece of advice, current and future breeders?

Let's say you've been thinking long and hard about what to name the spawn. You've been pouring over baby name books, looking back into the family tree, pondering what names are least likely to get the shit kicked out of little Junior on the playground, etc. And let's say that you've settled on something straightforward, common and unlikely to lead strangers to purse their lips and say, "huh?" after Junior introduces himself. "Job well done," you think to yourself.

WELL THINK AGAIN.

I have just spent the last 40 minutes trying to sift through the bajillion "Mary O'Briens" on the internet to find the ONE who was born in 1886 and died in Chicago in 1980. Even Ancestry.com, which is usually pretty good at finding that boring-named needle in it's equally whitebread haystack, has given me the website equivalent of, "bitch, please!" Normal names don't do your kid any good. They just make them exactly like all the other normal-named folks in the world. And when some poor museum intern is trying to track down information on your illustrious son Jack Smith, they aren't going to appreciate all your forethought.

Yeah, sure, little Hanchen Xoxctl Smith might get some bloody noses at recess, but when she's famous, dead, and on the internet she'll thank you.