Thursday, April 22, 2010

Kids' Names and a Cat Named "Freezer Burn"

"Did I ever tell you about my cat, "Freezer Burn?' my church member asked as he entered my office.
"You have a cat named 'Freezer Burn?' " I tried to ask without sounding as ridiculous as the question obviously sounded.
"We lost the cat one day," the proud owner beamed. "We couldn't find him at all until we went into the garage and heard this faint "meow" coming from the refrigerator. When we opened the freezer door, there he sat, nearly frozen. His hair was stiff and he had this odd streak up his back. So when I took him to the vet, and the vet asked 'What's the cat's name?' I said 'Freezer Burn.' And the name stuck."
This particular church member has a knack for hanging strange names on people and things, so don't let him near your children.
Speaking of children, my wife and I worked hard to give our offspring absolutely normal names. This came as a result of my having to live with a name no one could pronounce or spell in spite of the fact that it is all of one syllable. (After a lifetime of "Lard," "Lord," "Leared" and "Lurid," I threatened to disown our daughter is she named any of her children after me. She did anyway, and the middle child shares my middle name.)
So when our one son came along, I opted for a safe and manly name: Andrew, which means "manly" and that was about as manly as I could get. Andrew is one of my favorite disciples because you always find him talking to people about the Lord and bringing them to Jesus.
Andrew it was until he came home one day with his name spelled D-r-u. I could have lived with "Drew"as a shortened form of "Andrew," but no, "It's D-r-u" he said. One of his friends had spelled it that way. One of his friends who couldn't spell.
What possesses children at any age to mangle a perfectly good name? Andrew (It's still "Andrew" under our roof) has a friend named Steven, another good biblical name. So naturally he calls himself "Spaz" to the utter consternation of his father.
Sure, there are people in the world with names like "Moon Unit" for example. But the parents are responsible for that. And there was a baby I heard about who was named something that sounded like "Pahja May" but is spelled P-a-j-a-m-a. ("From the Sears Roebuck Catalog" said the mother.)
So if you're one of those preacher's kids who is tired of your Bible name and yearning for a change, you might think again. You could have ended up like "Freezer Burn." Or I could just send over my church member to make suggestions. He also has a dog named Happy Killer.

1 comment:

  1. awesome piece of information, I had come to know about your website from my friend srini, hyd, i have read all seven posts of yours by now, and let me tell you, your blog gives the best and the most interesting information. This is just the kind of information that i had been looking for, once again hats off to you! Thanks a ton once again, Regards, muslim boy names

    ReplyDelete