What's in a Name

y daughter’s budding freshman romance is either sickening, if you are a crusty old curmudgeon like myself, or the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen if you’re retarded.

I suppose I’m a little jealous in a weird and admittedly stupid way, that she’s dating someone in 9th grade. I didn’t have a date until the end of 10th grade and it didn’t go too well. I didn’t have a girlfriend . . . until . . . um . . . So, anyway, like I said, this thing is saccharine to the point of causing instant diabetes if you stand too close to her and it got even worse this week when she celebrated her monthiversery.

This auspicious date fell on the day one of best friends, Scott T. Pants, and his beautiful Italian wife brought a gorgeous girl into the world and made the exact same mistake as me and my Attorney by giving their daughter a name that is both elegant and portentous. They named their daughter Sophia. We named ours Sarah. Both names lie side-by-side in the baby name books under the rubric of “wisdom” but the baby name books are written by childless zombie robot hacks and they never go any deeper in their research or experience to figure out what a name really means because clearly the names Sophia and Sarah, if you look them up in the original Sanskrit, mean not “wise one,” but, instead, “too smart for her own good—and yours”. It’s right there on the pyramids.

I feel for Pants and his lovely Italian wife and I fear for him too because, like me, he has spawned a force of nature not unlike a hurricane for, like me, Pants married a beautiful genius, and, therefore, like Rah, his Sophia will be the center of his universe. Whether he likes it or not.

Having a beautiful genius daughter is a little like reverting back to your first girlfriend because they know they hold your heart in their hands and will happily smash it to pieces should you have the temerity to disagree with them about even the slightest thing. Say, for instance, coming home from a date via the blue line through Chicago after dark.

Where the normal, caring, wise father would offer the humble opinion that, should one decide to seek one’s puppy-love romance at one’s boyfriend’s parlour, one should plan this event, in the father’s, again, humble opinion, so that one leaves and returns at reasonable times and informs one’s parents in a reasonable fashion prior to the event of all the details surrounding the event out of respect for all the parties involved.

However, a girl named Wisdom knows, innately and without the arduous necessity of actual consideration, that world bends to her will and humble opinions be damned, she will inflict her noble presence on the CTA at her leisure or her father shall never have the pleasure of her company again.

So I feel like I ought to say something right here and now and provide a sign post, a guiding tract, a word, to new fathers everywhere, and particularly to my friend, Pants: choose your daughter’s name carefully and don’t pick something so auspicious as Sarah. Pick Hope or Faith or Joy—something malleable and sweet, a name that bespeaks verdant pastures and song. Something wholesome and Swedish, like Helga.