What's in a Name

I was talking with my sister just the other day about the little one that she's expecting and it occurred to me that she hadn't changed her last name since she became married. She still retains her Heidenreich name while her husband's last name is Rawitscher. This makes for a very interesting dilemma for an upcoming child. What name to give the child?

"Do we hyphenate our names together, why don't we just make up a new last name like Rawhide and ride off into the sunset as a family." Both last names are each terrible in their own right, neither is pronounceable by the common person and neither can be easily spelled if spoken, which is why my sister has never changed her name. Why trade one unpronounceable name for another. But the thought of naming a child Johnny Rawitscher-Heidenreich would probably be just as mean as naming a child Apple Tomato Smith.

I was also talking with her husband about baby names and we got to talking about first names. Does a name define the person, or does the person define the name? I know a number of people with the same first name and many of them are very similar. Have you ever met a physicist by the name of Brock? Have you ever met a jock with the name of Melvin? Think of a few names and see if the people you know by those names are similar. Maybe it's just my imagination.

If you ask me, they should just go with LaDamien Von Puderschmidt Rawitscher-Heidenreich III and be done with it.

~Matt