Time for some rules on names

4. You should be able to spell the name when you hear it — for the most part, people should not have to ask. Let's nationalize the spelling of some names and move on — is it Shayne, Shane, Shain, LeShane, what? To protect kids from a lifetime of hassle, we're going to have to ask future parents to refrain from creative spellings — and misspellings. A reader named Gary reports: "I have met two public servants required to wear name tags. The names on the tags were grossly misspelled. I gently inquired only to find out that this occurred at birth, and they have never taken the initiative to get their names changed!" Attention, future parents, if you have doubts the spelling of a name, ask for help.

5. Please, enough already with using last names for first names — Taylor, Kennedy, Madison, Johnson, Anderson, Lincoln.

6. No naming kids after weather phenomenon — Misty, Dusty, Smoky, Winter, Autumn (Autymn), Spring, Stormy (Stormee), Windy (Windee), Nimbus, Precipitation, Humidity (Humiditee) and so forth. Those are pony names, not human names.

7. It must be a name for people, not for objects, etc. "Apple," doesn't cut it, and neither does Avocado or Celery or any other fruit or vegetable.

8. If you get too cute with the name, you're probably trying too hard. A reader named Derek (Darrick?) reports that a co-worker gathered these names from his Facebook account: Jermagesty, Tequila, Bacardi, Champagne, Abcde (pronounced like "rhapsody").

9. Do not name all your kids with the same first letter. What if you have quintuplets and run out of names?

10. Naming kids after great people is a lot of pressure — think twice about using Lehi, Nephi, Moroni — characters from the Book of Mormon — or Mahatma — or, as one reader reported about one family, a set of brothers named Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

Let's give the last word on the subject to Gary (not Garee), who quoted Goethe in response to the name column: "A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself."

Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please send e-mail to drob@desnews.com