A few years ago I wrote about a couple I know who were determined to name their son
Beveridge (and in fact did name the boy that). He's three now, and I gather they call him "Bev" for short.
I recently happened to run into that couple again, and the wife happens to again be
pregnant, and this time with a
girl. For reasons honestly unconscious to me, I quite immediately blurted out, "you should name her Charcuterie." Perhaps I'd heard the word lately on
television or in some
Internet forum, but it was in my head and seemed as sensible a baby name as Beveridge.
Immediately after the words had escaped my mouth, I expected an
eyeroll or a disaproving
glare, but I was instead met with a disconcertingly approving moment of
consideration.
"Oh that's cute," the mother responded, reasoning "it sounds like '
Charlotte.' And it even has '
cute' right in the name." The father simply shrugged off baby-naming as "that's her department," especially after his championing of the name bestowed upon the son (so perhaps, more accurately, her department is girl-baby-naming).
Girls being no less tormentful than boys (though more inclined to the psychological than the physical ends of bullying), I now wonder -- what have I done?