Vi Red Fixes The World Part 2- Names

Some idiot once came up with the immortal line “What’s in a name?…”. Its alright for him, he had an incredibly cool name. Shakespeare. But generations of parents down the ages have been using his eloquence to justify some horrible atrocities against newborns the world over. And this edition of world-fixing is aimed squarely at them. Parents, It is absolutely not alright to name your kid after the first god that pops into your head when he’s born. “Oh look he’s so cute.” “Why don’t we name him after an elephant headed man who had a habit of riding rats?”

Its true that this is a topic particularly close to my heart as I no longer hold the name I was born with. I was originally named after the aforementioned elephant man. I didn’t think much of it, being far more concerned with the mass accumulation of GI Joes back then. Then I popped along to school and realized that roughly half the other kids’ parents had had the same idea as mine and there was a veritable army of elephant men in that classroom. There’s no excuse for such lethargy and lack of effort. Its not like we popped along unexpectedly is it? Nine months is plenty of time to think up one nice sounding name and have a wee check whether everyone else in the neighborhood is naming their kid the same thing or not. It wasn’t until I became old enough to read that I realized why the guy I was named after had an elephant’s head. Turns out one day, his dad had gotten a bit angry and decide to lop his original head clean off. What kind of message is that supposed to send to a young kid eh? No more father-son walks for me after that.

But I was one of the lucky few who had parents nice enough to realize when they’d stuck their kid with a stinker and help him out. I won’t say that life has radically become different for me or that my success rate with the ladies has shot up, but I like my name now. And goddamnit, that ought to be reason enough. Plus there’s the added benefit of being able to be in the same room as my father unaccompanied. In every other aspect of life we carefully consider and weigh options taking into account our tastes and societal acceptance and a zillion other factors, which makes the carelessness with which we tag an individual with a meaningless epithet for the entire duration of his life on earth, horrifying. Why is it that a man will spend more time deciding what to call his johnson than the being that it spews forth?

The obvious solution to this problem is to let the kids pick their own names. But as with most obvious solutions, it comes with an obvious drawback. Little kids aren’t very good at the whole naming thing. In fact they’re not very good at anything apart from sitting there and looking cute. But I digress, the point is that one person called Lady Gaga is plenty. Maybe we could let kids pick their own names but only when they got a bit older. But how old is old enough? And are they going to like it twenty years down the line? After all, no decent self-respecting 30 year old is going to want to be called Ash Ketchum.

After pondering all these conundrums, I have come up with the one true solution. The Vi Red solution. A name for every age. That’s right. Now, hold your skepticism for a minute and think about it. Our identity changes all the time and since a name is just an artificial construct whose entire raison d’être is to reflect that identity, shouldn’t a person’s name change over time as well? People are always looking for ways to express their individuality and personality. Well here’s the ultimate platform – your own name. You see, the flaw in Shakespeare’s logic is that there is nothing else in the world by the name “rose”. The pink petals defines the word. Imagine if it had been used to refer to a horrible man-eating flower before the pretty pink one. Wouldn’t smell so sweet then would it, ‘ol Bill?

Even if you disregard all the high concepts, just imagine how much fun it would be as a twelve year old if your teacher was forced to call out stuff like “Captain Planet” and “Fred Flintstone” during roll call everyday. And when you get a little older and start tuning into your inner emo, you could call yourself Raven or something equally pretentious. And when you’re middle-aged and stuck in a dead end job and a passionless life, maybe you could even name yourself after your boss reflecting the lily-livered sycophant that you have become. A name for every age.

Postscript: At this point, I would like to introduce you to the former dictator of Zaire and the living embodiment of my ideals, Mr. Mobutu. Born the son of a cook, Joseph Désiré Mobutu rose to become the ruler of the African nation of Zaire. And when he did, he decided to change his name to “Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga” which for those of you who don’t understand Swahili, translates to “The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”