How is baby Velociraptor?

Baby Velociraptor pictured above. Cute, isn't he?

His parents were, most likely, die-hard Jurassic Park fans. Because, what other reason can one have to name a child Velociraptor? However, baby Velociraptor never had the chance to terrorise his class with his cute dino name. Not because his parents didn't want him to have a cool dinosaur name, but because some people with some common sense and some authority in the baby registry office didn't approve the name. Logically.

In case you wonder, yes, someone in real life Finland wanted to name a child Velociraptor.

So, now Velociraptor is oficially banned as a baby name and no one in Finland can name a baby "Velociraptor." Not because no one wanted to have a baby Velociraptor in the family, mind you; but because Finland maintains strict naming laws (thanks to some common sense) and recent rejections by the Names Board include "Velociraptor" and "Uncle." However, "Piina" (I can only think of Pina Colada) and "Hamwar" were accepted for some reason beyond my understanding.

Doing some digging, I found out that the name Hamwar was officially approved in Finland in 2019 following some updated naming laws. It is a Persian-origin word used in Urdu/Hindi. It also seems like Hamwar means smooth, flat, or even, often used to describe surfaces or figuratively for making tasks easy. It also refers to a music artist on SoundCloud and the Koh-e Jar Hamwar peak in Afghanistan.

Now, let's have a look at Piina. I simply can't understand why someone would name a child Piina. It makes Velociraptor sound really good, though.

Piina is a Finnish noun meaning torment, agony, pain, misery, torture, or severe distress. It refers to extreme mental or physical suffering. It is often used to describe an unpleasant or excruciating experience. The word is derived from Germanic roots, relating to suffering.

Pictured above: Velociraptor getting his first car, parking outside his cave, I mean his home.

According to a YLE article I managed to accidentally read (I only read these baby names articles when I am trying to name one of my characters), it turns out that the variety of first names has doubled since the 1980s, highlighting a strong push for individuality in naming. Sure, that little Velociraptor would have certainly been the only one in his class.

Names that work in multiple languages seem to be rising, which only makes sense since those babies will live in a globalised world. Yet, that doesn't mean you have to name your child after a little dinosaur.

Velociraptor, the speedy thief

Finally, let's see some facts about the Velociraptor and how these facts could have influenced a baby Velociraptor's personality. I wonder if those baby Piinas will have a change of name in their future.

Also called a "speedy thief,"Velociraptor is one of the most bird-like dinosaurs ever discovered. It was small, roughly the size of a small turkey, and fast. Velociraptors roamed the Earth about 85.8 million to 70.6 million years ago during the end of the Cretaceous Period.

According to Live Science, in 1924, Henry Fairfield Osborn, then-president of the American Museum of Natural History, bestowed the name Velociraptor on this dinosaur; the word velociraptor is derived from the Latin words "velox" (swift) and "raptor" (robber or plunderer), as an apt description of this small dinosaur's agility and carnivorous diet. Adult Velociraptors grew up to 2 metres (6.8 feet) long, 0.5 metre (1.6 feet) tall at the hip, and weighed up to 15 kilograms (33 lbs).

Like I said at the start, Velociraptor had, indeed, a prominent role in the Jurassic Park movies. However, scientists do not believe the real Velociraptor resembled anything close to its Hollywood depiction in terms of both size or appearance. In the movies, Velociraptor was modeled after Deinonychus, and sported a similar size and snout.

Whilst the Velociraptor appeared to be featherless in the movies, paleontologists discovered quill knobs (places where the flight-related feathers of birds are anchored to the bone) on a well-preserved Velociraptor forearm found in Mongolia in 2007, indicating the dinosaur had feathers but because its arms were too short it couldn't fly.

Generation Beta

All these babies with all sorts of questionable names born from 2025 to 2039 will be known as Generation Beta, the first generation to grow up entirely in a world shaped by AI, the ones who will co-live with humanoids. Generation Beta is the officially proposed name for the cohort following Generation Alpha.

This label continues the modern alphabetical generational system introduced by social researchers, currently using the Greek alphabet. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in a classroom in the year 2050 only to see how those children will be called. For now, there will not be any Velociraptor at least!

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Would you name your child Velociraptor?