Baby name X may soon be trending

  

I used to think that I had a rare name. I didn’t know too many Dereks growing up. I knew of a Derrick, but that’s completely different.  

Now, so it seems, Dereks are everywhere. In my badminton league, all the sudden we had four Dereks. Distinguishing ourselves on the court was confusing and disorienting... Which Derek are you, one or two? And who’s Derek 4?? It was almost as bad as the multiple Mohammads we had back in 2018.

I heard a comedian say jokingly about how everyone has a friend named Brad and Derek. Say what?? I didn’t know any Dereks until I turned 40! I guess I’m not as unique as I once thought.  

But will you find a Derek younger than 30? I doubt it. Younger than 20? Not a chance. All the common names from my childhood are no longer in use as baby names: the Jasons, the Brads, the Brians, the Vanessas and the Crystals (we had at least two Crystals per class). 

Kids’ names are different today, as they are with almost every generation. We got a lot more “sons” going on like Mason, Jackson and Carson, plus old favourites like Olivia and Noah that are still popular (one since biblical times).  

Another thing happens with different generations of name giving: We spell the names differently. Why not adhere to English’s many foibles and make the spelling a little more complicated? Ashly has changed over time to Ashley and most recently to Ashleigh. Don’t even get me started on Brittney, Britany or Britanni. You will know each generation by their spelling. 

For our daughter, we went with the “y” for Sonya instead of the German “j” for obvious reasons. That doesn’t stop people from trying out the “j” anyway, even though it makes little sense linguistically for us non-German-speaking folk. As far as pronunciation, you would think the removal of the “j” would make her name easy to pronounce, but the “o” occasionally becomes a long “oh”, while we would prefer a short vowel sound, as in open-up-your-mouth-and-say “ah”. She’s even been called Sunny, which is taking a little too much liberty in my opinion. 

In Ukraine, where my wife is from, your birth name isn’t the one that’s typically used by your family. It’s a shortened version. Sasha, for example, is short for Oleksandr if you’re a boy and short for Alexandra if you’re a girl. But if you really want to be affectionate, you call them Sonechka. If you want to scold them (what good parent doesn’t?), then you yell, “Sashka!” 

It’s all very confusing to us Westerners, but it makes complete sense to anyone who grew up in that culture. They also address people formally by using their first and middle name, not with mister or missis. The middle name is easy to remember (kind of) because it's a variation of each person’s father’s name. My wife has never liked that her middle name is Petrivna, the feminized version of her father’s name, Peter. 

Whatever the culture, people tend to overuse the names of their time period. Some parents might think they’re being original, like my parents may have thought when they named me, but they obviously were not. Recently, I read about how a young couple chose the name Cyrus for their baby boy, thinking he would be the first kid in America with such a name. As it turns out, Cyrus is one of the most popular names given to baby boys today. 

Call it subconscious cultural vibes? As hard as we may try, we're typically not that original. Nor do we want to be. Just ask Elon Musk’s son, X Æ A-Xii (that’s pronounced X Ash A Twelve, in case it wasn’t obvious) how he enjoys his time on the playground. And, once he’s an adult, ask how he enjoys spelling his name over the phone. 

I've heard they already shortened it to X. 

Given Musk’s following, I’m sure this name, too, is no longer one of a kind. 

Humankind's (and my) search for meaning

 

With all the polarization in our society, there seems to be a lack of guiding principles or common cause that might bring us together, to find greater meaning. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, are we all on our phones too much? 

We lack the sense of community that was normal in past centuries, where people would gather routinely for religious or other communal events. The “bowling alone” phenomenon doesn’t help our cohesiveness as a society.  

The proliferation of social media has also allowed any number of views to become popular and even commonplace, no matter how untethered to the truth. In the past, the mainstream news media were the gatekeepers of what made news legitimate and what was patently false. 

We’ve also lived through a century of relative peace and abundance in the West. This raised a generation that had not experienced significant hardships, but rather one that was accustomed to increasing wealth, creating both apathy and resentment. Gen Z may be anesthetized by TikTok, but still bitter towards those in power for creating a gig economy with few benefits and ridiculously expensive homes. 

So what am I really trying to say here? I'm not sure anymore... I wanted to talk about the meaning of life. Victor Frankl, the renowned Jewish psychologist, suggested we can find meaning in any circumstance, even in a Nazi death camp. He miraculously survived concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau to write his seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning, where he argues that meaning can be found in the least hopeful places on earth. But we must create it.

Some of us can do this more easily than others, Frankl freely admits. While it would be nice to think every one of us can will ourselves out of a funk, context matters. For an immigrant coming from a war-torn country, life satisfaction may come from being in a safe, secure country like Canada, even if his or her job may not be that fulfilling. Those with immense wealth, by contrast, may find that they are never satisfied and can never have enough. 

Even those of us who have the ideal work-life balance (I may be referring to myself) can struggle, ironically, if there is not enough struggle. For this problem, there may be an easy answer: More struggle.  

Psychiatrist Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, suggests purposely creating challenges in our lives – to create some harmless friction if life seems too easy or routine. To be clear, this is advice for the privileged, not something you would tell a new immigrant to Canada or, to put it in starker terms, someone like Frankl who survived a concentration camp. This is for those of us who can’t live without our phones for twenty seconds. 

I've tested her theory with some success. Completely unintentionally, I challenged myself this past winter by biking in freezing cold temperatures. This was not always easy. As I struggled to get enough oxygen through my frozen-solid face mask, I sometimes thought to myself, What the heck am I doing? But by the time I got home and tore off the layers of sweaty clothes, I had no regrets. 

Another absurd thing I tried was Ukrainian dancing at the ripe old age of 46. Again, What the heck am I doing, jumping in the air with my toes pointed down?! I'm a Mennonite who struggles with moving to music! But do I enjoy it? Finally, in my second year of pointed toes, I can say that I do. 

It's good to take on something new, even something you may not be good at. I know, easier said than done. It took me, what, 25 years to get the courage to start winter biking? And just 40 years, if I had started when I was six, to begin Ukrainian dancing? 

In the end, these activities may not be making for a better world. But for a time, they keep me off my phone.