A Boy Named Sue

What is up with all the expectant parents naming their babies before they are even born?

Several of my friends, some as early on as 4 months in, are already telling me what they plan on naming their son or daughter. Doesn’t that take some of the fun out of the whole event? I mean, first you go ahead and find out the gender of the baby, then you go ahead and name it? The delivery is pretty much just a formality then, isn’t it?

And how can you name a person you haven’t even met yet?

How can you decide to name your baby Ronald, when he’s born and looks more like a Chet? Then the rest of his life he’ll feel like something is not quite right. But he won’t know exactly what it is. Instead, he’ll start acting out, playing with dolls, kissing other boys and then he’ll decide, at 19, that it must be because he really should have been born a girl! Then he’ll get the sex change and when the nagging feeling doesn’t go away he’ll start doing drugs and hanging out at truck stops, blowing guys for crack money. When all along, it was just that he should have been named Chet.

I'm not saying don't spend time trying to come up with several names you like for the soon-to-be-born, but when the day comes and Baby crawls out from the abyss, take a look at him or her and then decide on the name. Otherwise your Ronald well end up being Rondalina and that wasn't the name you wanted for him/her either.