Saturday, June 14th, 2008...2:18 pm
#15: Don’t Be Named Bob or Pat
Or Pam or, God forbid, Dick. There’s a whole generation of names last popular in the 40s and 50s — Karen and Donald, Barbara and Leonard — that you’ve got to avoid if you don’t want to seem old.
Of course, you didn’t choose your own name and you’re pretty much stuck with it unless you want to do something really radical and change it to one that sounds young. Like what? Josh or Jessica, if you want to go thirtyish. Hey, but those names are aging fast, so you may want to go even younger, with a name like Justice or Jagger. Or turn the whole age-name thing on its head and pick a really old name that’s popular for babies: Moses, say, or Matilda.
For further ideas, check out one of the baby name books I wrote with Linda Rosenkrantz. You don’t have to be a baby to need a new name.
THANKS PAM – just when I was feeling near ancient reading your blog, realizing I still don’t have a facebook page, nor does texting or IMing come easy to me, and the 12 year old comment is dead on, not to mention the lifeguard postings, anyway — now even my very NAME makes me old. SIGH! Notwithstanding all this, love your blog.
-From your friend K (formerly known as Karen)
K, good idea… going just by your first initial is very in! ;p