Baby names

Tuesday

Matt McDonald

Thinking about baby names

How many of you know a baby called Margot? I’ve encountered three in the last couple of months. They all looked more or less the same too. Presumably it’s twenty years too late to blame The Royal Tenenbaums — so perhaps Ms. Robbie is responsible? There’s a lot I love about America, and in many respects this country has improved on the systems and traditions of my own — but one adjustment I cannot get behind is the frequency with which you guys deploy last names as first names. Many want to show appreciation for their favorite president, hence the number of kids called Reagan and Jefferson — and the lack of ones called Biden and Trump. But there’s something bleakly corporate about the result.

names

Sunday

Christopher Caldwell

What’s in a name?

I used to have a cantankerous old relative who hewed to generalizations drawn from long experience. One of them concerned people named “Adam.” On a Sunday morning twenty years ago, as we sat around reading the papers, I mentioned Adam Sandler — or maybe it was Adam West or Adam Vinatieri. “All Adams are assholes,” he grumbled. “You ever notice that?” I tried to respond with some piety about how these people were not to blame for being called Adam. But I had a nagging sense that that was not how the Wheel of Onomastic Destiny spun. I had spent much of my adult life looking for heroic qualities in people bearing my own middle name, which is Scott. Even before I was fully emerged from childhood, Scott had acquired a bad name.

name