The American First Name Crisis

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Most human beings are quite entertaining, even more than television. That's why I become frustrated with always having to use boring names when I refer to them. Most of our first name choices are the verbal equivalent of watching yourself sleep. They simply do not do justice to the regal and befuddling beings to which they are affixed.
As the Christian Church attempts to retain some of its eroding influence in society, it is probably not helped by the fact that these dreary labels are called “Christian names.” Why are they called that? Does it have anything to do with the way Jesus was always renaming everybody? I'm just asking. Saul got renamed Paul, Cephas became Peter, Levi ended up as Matthew. I hate to say it, but every one of these is a change from a name with some meat on the bone to a name that sounds like cabbage tastes. This is not good PR.
I'm as happy as anybody that American Democracy won the Cold War, but those reds had it all over us in the first name department: Vladimir, Helga, Igor. What's wrong with the following sentence: “Yaah, my cumrad, let us consume gallons of vodka, then incite revolutions and carry buxom women back to our tents. What do you say, Otis?” Get the point? There may be an American flag on the moon, but that doesn't change the fact that it was put there by guys named Neil and Ed.
Like many of our social problems, I think this one may have something to do with juvenile delinquents. Remember how grade school bullies would always make fun of anybody who had an interesting name? Guys named Gordon Lord Byron, Igor Stravinsky or Horace Walpole or Humphrey Bogart would come home from school sobbing, and when there was an addition to the family, Mommy and Daddy would have learned their lesson: “Hey, Jupiter, say hello to your new little brother, Roy.”
Our forever-cutting-edge television writers have evidently been aware of this problem for a long time. The ancient T.V. show "The Waltons" gave its characters two boring names: Jim Bob, John Boy, Sue Bob, etc. But it didn't work for two reasons: First, the effect of two boring things together is not increased interest, it's just two boring things together, like someone with an MBA playing shuffleboard. Secondly, in all the history of English speaking peoples, there was no basis anywhere in objective reality for this two first name scheme. Why didn't anybody ever question this? Suddenly, sitting out in the mountains of primo Americana in the 1930's were a husband and wife who did not know how to name their children, even with lots of practice. With just a little more effort on the part of its writers, “The Waltons” could have been a very clever Sci-Fi satire. The two first name thing would have been your first clue that creatures from another planet had come to harvest us, and their preliminary research team had just been a little shoddy. Later on in the show, you'd see them sleeping under their beds instead of on them, and still later, old Doc and the wimp who owned the mercantile could stumble across a flying saucer in the hay barn.
In the 80's and 90's, certain Southern California Former Yuppies Now Parents (FYNP's) tried to solve the problem by giving their children trendy names like Justin, Genelle, Jason and Jamie. But I fear that this is only a false alarm, a pseudo-revolution. First of all, 90% of these names begin with the letter J, which is even worse than boring, a new low in social conformity; and secondly, there's just something in these names that calls to mind blueberry yogurt, pasta salads, beamers and complete ignorance of anything truly enduring in human culture.
So to solve the boring name problem, I hereby put out a call to all prospective parents. Don't just buy one of those little first name books that sit next to the National Inquirer at the grocery store (Mark Your Baby for Life!). If we all start applying our imaginations at the same time, nobody will be treated like a freak. Here are some guidelines: Adolph is out because of the Nazis and the meat tenderizer. Rudolph is out because of the Nazis and the reindeer. (One more good reason to hate the Nazis: Interesting Name Trashing -- INT.) Other names which are not boring but should not be considered for other reasons are: Darth Vader, Tarzan, Idi, and God. Which reminds me of how much a name influences how someone gets treated. What if God were named, say, Roscoe? See what I mean?
People used to be named after the major Christian virtues such as Faith, Hope and Charity. I think it's a good tradition, but those particular traits hardly stir the passions anymore. How about Tolerance? Or, Billionaire? Free Thinker, Highly Evolved, Never Discriminates? Or if you aren't that ambitious for your offspring, why not Table Manners, or Potty Trained?
Native American Indians are as colorful and profound as anyone can be in this area, with the likes of Running Deer or Sitting Bull. How about a contemporary continuation of this tradition: Sizzling Bacon, or Eyes-From-Too-Much-Television?
Here are some miscellaneous possibilities: Sigma, Negatron, Huge, Tasmania, and Luminous. Or names that sound like sophisticated initials: Aybee, Arjay, Beebee. Or DeeEmZee (that's a good one). Of course a lot of these sound like nicknames. But that's just the point. Maybe we give nicknames as a result of humanity's natural tendency to spice up boring things. If someone really was named Potty Trained, we might call him or her “Pot” for short, but I don't think so. Nobody refers to Saskatchewan as “Sassy”, or to the Hundred Years War as "The Hunny”. Arnold Schwarzenegger always gets called by his full name. Why? Because no one wants to miss an opportunity to talk like that.
I think if our real names were more interesting, most of us would have better self-images and get invited to parties more often. Then we would stop burdening ourselves with global problems which are so enormous that they make us overly nervous so that we forget to be considerate of our neighbor. Of course, there is also the possibility that I am completely wrong on this point and that boring names provide a major calming influence, like soft music, Prozac and Utah.
In any case, In any case, the subject needs a little more attention than its getting. So I conclude with a poem:

Zebulon Zyffle
Came at the end
Of lines and lists
And telephone books.
He sat in school
Without a friend
In the very last row
Where no one looks.

Imagine what
His life became
As he thought and he thought
Without speaking at all;
As he heard profound questions
Like, "What's in a name?"
Come from Artemis Ashley
And Bernadette Ball.

He built funny bombs
That really went BOOM!
To show to his mother
(Oh, how he adored her!)
When she scolded him harshly
He withdrew to his room
And blew up the world
In alphabetical order.