Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Name Game

Whenever I work at the library I notice most of our patrons, the one's who check out books, are either very old or very young. The younger adults come in to either check out books-on-tape or magazines. The older children come in to use the computers to either play games or go online.

The last time I worked behind the check-out desk I was very conscious of the names of the people who checked out books. I had a child called Shakotah (a boy) and an older gentleman called Elmer come up to the counter within five minutes of each other. Only in this day and age would someone name their boy Shakotah. Plus I think I can safely say that you are not going to run across a little boy named Elmer anytime soon. That got me thinking about how children's names come in and go out of style.

For the rest of the day I kept track of the names of the young children, five years-old and younger, and the names of their great-grandparents, people born in the 1920's and 1930's.

Great-grandparents:
Girls- Hattie, Ethel, Bernice, Pearl, Gerty, Minnie.
Boys- Norvin, Otto, Ruben, Delbert, Elmer, Alvin.

Children:
Girls- Brandi, Breanna, Jacy, Mallery, Piper, Chasisley.
Boys- Tyler, Kale, Logan, Shakotah, Cody, Brett.

It's interesting how old-fashion the great-grandparent's names look in this day and age. Someday names like Piper, Mallery, Kale and Shakotah will seem just as antiquated.

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