What To Name Your Newborn...

 

The Computer Generated Generation 

by Asta Dido

 

What To Name Your Newborn

  

Nowadays names of babies can be and are “computer generated and one can even use an Internet Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and MS to see lists of newborn names and they are even ranked by the most popular. But, in my day I  can remember my mother and my aunts huddled around my cousin Crusificia to change her diaper. They oohed and aahed at what she had made. They called it purpettos—the Italian word for “meatballs” but they should have called it mustard because that’s what she squirted  on everyone when they  placed her face down to powder that tiny little volcano of a rump. Her blessing came later in life when they listed her name as Sophie on the birth certificate. Imagine going through life with a name that means “Crucifix” –she might be cross with that name in later life—LoL.

 

What ever you decide to name your offspring, your newborn’s diaper will smell just the same—just ask any new mother!

 Like me, my best buddy’s name is Samuel but he was baptized as Salvatore—Salvatore di Lorenzo. His family and his old friends called him Sal but, everyone else called him Sam.  Once I asked him why his mother named him Samuel and he told me that his mother thought highly of Jewish people and thought them to be very lucky and that if she named him Samuel he would blessed with whatever luck it is that Jewish people are blessed with. He confessed that his mother worked in the Garment Center in the depression and the mostly Jewish and Italian women would have a pool each putting in pennies and offering names for those about to give birth! He said some of the names he was lucky not to get were Schmuel, Saul or Sol and Hymie.

 Some Christians especially Italians have two names and even three; one is on the birth and the other on the baptism certificate and the third is the Saint’s name given at Confirmation; usually used as a middle initial. Go to the Internet and you can get dizzying  lists of thousands of names and you don’t have to be a Christian to use as many as them as you want. Lately some country’s, like New Zealand, and  some governments have put restrictions on the type of names that can be used. No they won’t let you name your baby “R2D2!” So you “Treckie and SciFi Fans” can forget about it!

 People, modern parents (mostly the dominant mothers) don’t give their precious offspring names that were familiar to us in the past. And Poppa, the Alpha male has little to say, if anything, on the subject; he wisely knows when not to name call.

 No more Tom, Dick, Mary and Jane. Now it’s Ashley, Madison, Jennifer and for the guys it’s Ethan, Joshua, Kyle and Broderick. Have a newborn and want to go nuts--Google yourself onto that baby naming web page—they even have “Baby Naming Wizards”  and page after page of names and by the time you are ready to name your boobala they will be old enough to name themselves. Or, you can call them Page. Page Schwartz, that has a nice ring to it. But keep an eye  on your little page they might want to hyphenate and use the both names of their parents like Page Goldstein-Russo. Is a girl, or boy for that matter, supposed to keep their hyphen until they are ready for marriage?   And, as TV’s Andy Rooney would probably ask, why don’t we change our first names when we say “I Do!”

 But, are you ready for this? Not only have popular names changed but the kids themselves have changed. Think of recent generations as the “Radio Generation” then came the “Television Generation” and now we a smack dab in the middle of “The Computer Generation!” I’ll tell you parents even check your children’s fingers they might be changing through evolution as kids start going “Texting” crazy—they might, were it not for cell phones, loose the ability to communicate verbally! This new generation is as different from us as Hip-Hop is to music we parents were able to listen to, understand, and enjoy and as different from Rock & Roll was to Viennese Waltzes. Anymore, many kids don’t even live in the real world—they live in cyberspace! They live on “MySpace” and “YouTube” and have even developed a language all their LoL/ ROTFL own. They understand it and we elders don’t and that’s the difference. Hey, it’s their time and they will do anything they want with it no matter how much parental authority we exert.

 I remember when if you described someone as “being all thumbs” you were saying that they were clumsy oafs. Today, virtually all “Texting” is done on a QWERTY mini keyboard’s using—what else—your thumbs. And don’t look now but the kids are completely changing language and its usage. It’s all about speed and shortcuts! LoL is laugh out loud, ROTFL is roll on the floor laughing, ”U” becomes you and if you come upon your child Texting a pal, U will only see a string of letters you will never be able to decipher, but, he will be warning the other kid that he is being observed by a “parental unit!”

 When I first started teaching computers in a Brooklyn Elementary School the first question I would ask the kids was “how many of you have computers at home” and it was rare if two or three children raise their hands. When I later moved on to teaching on the high school level almost every one raised there hands and I stopped asking the question. It was my foregone conclusion that by then babies were exposed to computers and certainly technology at birth! Please don’t doubt me! Why, it’s not even unusual for a mother to nurse her baby while working at home on a laptop. That kid will just be sucking that computer stuff up as part of their reality. That’s the way we learn and that’s the time we learn the mostest…

 Today, teaching computers to children is a real challenge. Kids mistakenly (and sometimes dangerously) think they know it all. True, many kids know more about computers than most teachers do and many teacher’s just give up. The teacher just has to stay ahead of the learning curve. That’s where the “WOW” factor comes in. When you teach a child something they didn’t know and their eyes light up and they say “wow!”

 If you see a group of  boys and girls gang up around a computer and they are raucous you know they are not watching  Encyclopedia Britannica on line but some nasty download from the web—when you get there you will see something innocent and nice but just click to the prior screen and yell “gotcha!”  and watch them scatter! When you catch a kid doing something they aught not be doing they will look at you quizzically and think “how did the teacher know that” I look them straight in the eye and say “ I was born at night but, not last night!”

 PS, some good  advice to parents—keep your child’s computer in view at all times! Why? This is the subject of another story about protecting your children from predators!!!

  

Asta Dido  is the Pen Name of Sam Di Bernardo  a retired Computer Teacher running for a seat in the NY City Council, Dist. 32 Queens