Naming Your Sons

Boys should have manly names that lend themselves easily to short nicknames, like "Mike," "Bill," "Joe" and "Alex." Avoid showoff literary or mythological references - "Heathcliff," "Castor," "Roland," etc. Just because you went into decades of debt in student loans to sit around for four years at a pricey college and read books is no reason to take it out on your child.

Don't name a boy "Sean" or "Connor" if the most Celtic thing in his life is Irish Spring.

Olde Englishe names are also stupid. I mean, "Percival?" People who do this should be hitte wyth plankes.

If you're an 'ethnic' White, use English spellings. "Henry," not "Heinrich." "Steven," not "Etienne." "Charles," not "Karl."

If you're Black and want to Keep It Real, at least talk to someone who actually speaks an African language before you name your son after the Swahili word for fencepost. Also, avoid deliberately misspelling the name - Daymon, Danyel etc. - because you think it makes him "special." It doesn't. It makes him look like his parents can't spell.

If you do want your son to feel special, do not name him exactly after his father and then "Jr" or Roman-Numeral him. A 10 year old kid named "Richard Theodore Warburton IV" might as well have HIT ME branded on his forehead as far as his peers are concerned.

As for religious names - all Old Testament names are grandfathered in, as are Saints' names if you're Catholic, but explicitly religious names should be otherwise avoided unless you're a devotee of the religion and the religion endorses such things. Whatever the case, anyone naming his son "Siddhartha Williams" should hear the sound of one hand slapping him.