Castro the Destroyer

Last night, Schmidt's special lady friend came over -- we'll just call her AAB (as something more creative is not coming to mind at the moment). She was pretty psyched about Ghana winning a soccer game in whatever round of the Africa Cup is going on right now. We're not a soccer household, so she was without question the person most excited about this result in our apartment yesterday. And I suppose soccer tradition dictates that when your home team wins, then you go to someone's house, do a crazy victory dance and cook the residents of this domicile a delicious meal. I don't know...I'm not a big soccer fan. My theory is purely based on her actions.

AAB is pretty funny that's for dang sure. Somehow, we got onto the topic of baby names and she said that whenever I do decide to have a child...that a great name for this kid would be "Castro the Destroyer". It was random and beautiful. I laughed.

Once upon a time, I had a conversation with Papa Schmidt about how Americans name their kids. In typical Papa Schmidt fashion, he begins with a fairly innocuous question or statement. In this particular conversation, he had asked about the origins of my first name, Raven, which (unfortunately?) is an homage to a soap opera character rather than a certain famous poem. AND, in typical Papa Schmidt fashion, he follows up said question/remark with a vaguely insulting comment. In this particular instance it was about how Americans just give their kids any old name...whatever they happen to see lying around. Like "Garden Fence", for example.

The worst part is that any comeback just sounded like a thousand times more rude in my head. What I wanted to say was, "Yeah, so? German names are pretty boring and generally wack." Which I didn't say, mostly because I didn't want to explain to him what the word "wack" means. So, I just said that I personally don't know anyone named "Garden Fence". What I didn't say was that I could imagine that somewhere there is probably someone named Garden Fence, but that I didn't have a problem with this. America...FUCK YEAH! Etc.

Today, while viewing one of my favorite pop culture/hip hop blogs, Poplicks, I learned that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution created a searchable online database of the first names of children born in Georgia since 1990 (and their frequency/popularity).

It's so crazy fun. I wasted an incredible amount of time this evening searching through it. Here are some of my favorites:

Vajillian (2 girls), Albino (2 boys), Aquemini (1 boy/ 1 girl), Excedreanna (1 girl), Extrasweet (1 girl), Exxon (1 boy), Daquantics (1 boy), Unknown (14 Boys / 6 Girls), Unnamed (46 Boys), Undrez (2 Boys), Unknamed (1 Boy / 1 Girl), Uranus (1 Girl), Supreame Justice (1 Boy), Erotika (1 Girl), Volcano (1 Boy), Thorbjorn (1 Boy), Rage (1 Boy), Squirdarien (1 Boy), Jurmon (3 boys), Rza (1 boy), Gzus (1 boy), Gzim (1 boy), Ikea (20 girls)

My favorite, of course, is Vajillian...which is what I'm going to start calling my sister Gillian, because it sounds like her name -- with a little bit of extra vagina thrown in...

Anyway, try it out. It's so addictive.