What's in a name? Depends if you're a Katherine or a Charo

As you know, I generally don’t post links here but I have to make an exception this time because you really need to see it for yourself.

Below is a link to a story I saw while looking up the word ‘catharsis’ used in a previous post. Yes, every now and then I go to Dictionary.com and look up words – more people should. Anyway, the story drew my interest because it was a story about names and a study done under the premise of what does your name say about your socio-economic status and education etc. (your best bet is to highlight the whole thing and paste it into your browser)
 http://hotword.dictionary.com/names/?__utma=1.464618247.1292379951.1304560770.1309136548.3&__utmb=1.4.9.1309136555625&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1309136548.3.1.utmcsr=(direct)utmccn=(direct)utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=193397805

Of course, when I read something like this it inevitably devolves into me having a dozen open tabs on the internet and learning all kinds of junk I didn’t need or necessarily want to know – but as I now get to write about them, I know you’ll have wasted precious moments of your life as well and if I’m going to waste hours of my life here in BOB-2.0 then it’s the least I can do to share the experience.

Anyway, a couple things in this story caught my eye: First, “Katherine” was the highest scoring name and, according to the story, “Katherine goes to a private school, statistically…”

This is great news for me because my daughter’s name is Katherine – and while I hope she goes to a good college, I also hope she wins the lottery or something because my name is Rosaire and while there isn’t a listing for my name in the story, I’m sure it would say something like this: ‘Rosaire’s are generally gender-confused by others who can’t physically see them and they display a disproportionate unwillingness to accept they might be wrong which leads most to be lucky to graduate from high school much less find meaningful employment which will allow them to pay for a daughter named Katherine.’ But that’s just a guess.

The article also mentions Sierra and Dakota. Apparently, again according to the article and not me so don’t send your hate mail my way – Sierra and Dakota don’t go to college.

Well, duh! Gather a group of men over the age of, oh, 17, and ask them what Sierra and Dakota do for work – go ahead, I’ll wait – I’m going to tell you what they’ll say, they’ll tell you that Sierra and Dakota are strippers.

Those are stripper names – like Moonlight or Destiny - and it makes me laugh every time I see it – usually on a reality TV show. The father has got to know this isn’t a good thing and I think he should be obligated to say something - unless it's a family name (!) To my mind it’s the equivalent of naming your son Dipthong or Mortimer.

No, names don’t dictate what we become and the whole study is really rubbish, but if you think about it, how many Rachels do you know who are unattractive? Probably some, sure, but usually, Rachel pans out pretty well. And I don’t know their names but it also seems that an overwhelming majority of women who drive VW convertibles with the tops down – are (or were) attractive women. It’s not a dead certainty, no, but do a study of your own sometime.

Now, you may be thinking, ‘hold the boat here boss, what’s your name and what gives you the right to talk about what other people are naming their kids?’

Well, having a name like mine is exactly what gives me that right. I did not name myself Rosaire, but still, according to my mother I was very nearly Jeffrey – and truth be told, I’m much happier with Rosaire - it's a great conversation starter and has served me well in the past in that capacity.

But there are precious few of us around. In fact, according to another site that purports to use Social Security card application data, there have been exactly zero Rosaire’s since 1998 in this great land of ours. At the same time there have been 26 young men named Josephus and 219 named Horatio. So, statistically speaking, I am a Mortimer.

And while I know of a number of Rosaire’s out there – some of which aren’t even related to me, I do take a little umbrage at the fact that most sites classify my name as a female name, despite the fact I have never seen or heard of a female Rosaire before. Every Rosaire I know alive or dead is or was a male-gendered individual.

And while I’m on the trail of umbrage, here’s the real felony of it all – if you were to believe these sites, even though I don’t know what kind of job or education I’m supposed to have, apparently the nickname for Rosaire isn't 'Roe' or 'Rosey' at all - it is, of all things, Charo.

I think I’d prefer Mortimer.