Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones

Do you know what alexinomia is? No sweat if you don’t. I only found out myself about forty minutes ago. It was an article in Vogue that got me looking. The article covered some of the quirky names given by celebrities to their children. I say ‘quirky’ but I’m thinking something different, something pejorative. I use quirky because I’m polite. I try to avoid giving offence where I can. Life’s tough enough, right? Why pile rudeness on top of that?

No balls, you’re dead right.

Quirky names. If you’re of a certain vintage, you’ll remember the likes of Rolan Bolan, Zowie Bowie and Dweezil Zappa. And now that I’ve poked your memory cells, you’ll be wondering what became of these sons of music legends.

Thanks for asking. A quick internet search tells me that they’re doing okay. Despite being saddled with quirky (cough) names by their parents, they’ve gone on to have productive lives and careers. Quite possibly a lifetime of counselling, too, but hey. Them’s the breaks when you live on Planet Celeb. Oh, and Zowie Bowie is now better known as Duncan Jones.

If true happiness is found by embracing the mundane, then Zowie must’ve grabbed himself a big lump of the stuff with that switch.

The fact that they’ve turned out well must be a comfort to the current generation of sons and daughters mentioned in the Vogue piece. At least, it will be when they’re old enough to worry about this kind of thing. People like Lyra Antarctica, daughter of Ed Sheeran and his wife, Cherry Seaborn. Not forgetting Lyra’s younger brother, Jupiter.

Or how about Exa Dark Sideræl, daughter of Elon Musk and Grimes? They call her ‘Y’, by all accounts. Their son is called X Æ A-Xii. He gets called ‘X’.

Of course he does.

But listen, if you think this piece is just about taking cheap shots at celebrities, you’re wrong. I like to spread the cheap shots around. And let’s be honest, the rich and famous don’t have a monopoly on odd names; I used to live across the street from a man called Myles Long, and his parents were dirt poor. Not that I knew them, but Myles told me his dad used to sell clothes pegs from a suitcase. Honest work, sure, but not something that’s going to have you researching offshore tax breaks.

I’ve also encountered a Rhoda Book and a Rose Daley. These are no-blame names, however, as they came as a part of a package that included their husbands. Yeah, yeah, victims of the patriarchy, should’ve kept their own surname after marriage. I hear you, sister, but that might not have been the easy solution it appears to be.

I mean, we don’t know what their names were before their nuptials. Rhoda Dandron, perhaps, in which case marrying Mr Book was probably an improvement. And maybe Rose née Earley didn’t see much of a difference up ahead.

Anyway, to cut a short story even shorter, the Vogue article got me thinking about why some people might suffer from alexinomia. That’s the fear of using personal names if you haven’t already checked. I think it’s a perfectly rational reaction if you’ve been lumbered with some of the names we’ve looked at here.

And we’re only scratching the surface. So, a big group hug to all the people I’ve never come across but who are out there somewhere, I’m sure. I’m talking about you, Penny Lane. I share your pain, Kanye Diggett, Summer Halliday and Noah Lotte.

Just thinking about what you all go through brings me out in a Cole Swett...