Hey all, a special treat. Marck McEachern is a good friend and one of the funniest dude’s I know. He sings with me in my band, plays ball on our mixed league and his wife while enjoying the odd glass of Two Oceans, joins along!

He writes a blog for the local Hockey Oldtimers, as well as a weekly re-cap of our ball league. I’ve asked him to contribute when he can to my blog, because well, I so enjoy reading his work. I pretty much told him he could write about whatever the hell he wants and this is his first entry!
Enjoy!

The Name Game

My name is Mark.

Now, I was told it was supposed to be Peter, according to my mother. She also said that the name “Whiskey” was passed around the table for me to have, as those celebrating my arrival decided that what they were drinking was just about as good a name as any.

Thank God they were not passing around Rum that night. I probably would have inherited a lot of nicknames not to my liking. Dumb, Scum, Bum, etc…..not good.

You see, I’m convinced the great majority of people don’t call other people by name because they don’t know how much it means to a person. Thus, we have to be very careful when naming our children. It’s a mark ( no pun intended here) of respect when a person calls you by your name. The person went to the trouble of remembering your name and using it. It makes you feel good that the person showed this recognition when so few bother to do so.

The problem is when people find your real name to be boring and decide to give you a nickname.

My nickname is “Hammer”. I have had it since I was 13 or 14. And now that I’m 40, I sometimes find it strange when one of my buddies calls me “Mark”. I think that they’re mad or something. For example, “Heah Hammer, come over here” ….I automatically think that I am going to hear a joke or maybe have to defend my friend on something he was accused of. But when I here “Mark, come over here” ….I feel like I’m either going to have to explain myself to someone for something I’ve done or that it’s something serious.

I have had other nicknames too. Some of those include “Mad Dog”, “Meestir”, “Scooby” and “Little Al”.

And when you get this nickname, those people who you don’t know will draw their own conclusions. For example, you’re in a bar and someone introduces you to their friend called “Squirrely”. Yeah, this is nice. I’m in a bar with a guy called Squirrely. Geez, I wonder if I should keep and eye on him. Or how about when you’re in the army and the guy beside you in the bunker’s nicknmae is “Chicken”?? Yikes.
So close your eyes….wait a minute, don’t close you’re eyes…I need you to read this. I want you to visualize what the following people might be like, or look like, smell like even…just draw your conclusions of what you think when you hear the nicknames; Boom Boom Belinda. Rusty. Patches. Nails. Lizard. Pipes. Rat. Buster. Stretch. Flapper. Stubby. Horsey. Piggy. Tiger. Slobby. Geek. Goggles.

We listen to the name and draw our own conclusions to what that person looks like, is like, acts like…al by the name we hear.

So, all I’m suggesting is let’s be careful when we play the Name Game. We must not make the mistakes that others have made when naming their children. For example, I’m not so sure the following mothers and fathers thought this through when they named their children “Anita Lay” or “Bill Board”….”Brooke Trout” ,”Don Key”, “Helen Backe”, “Hugh Jorgan” or “Tim Burr”. Maybe it’s just me, but they all could have take a couple of more minutes before slapping those names down on a birth certificate.

It’s tough, the Name Game”, don’t get me wrong. I should know, because I had to name four of my daughters. Now, I’m not saying we got it right, but we settled on Olivia, Ava, Sofie and Maci.
And it was just the other day where I read that three of those four names were found in the Top 100 Baby Names in Canada for 2008 in the girl’s category, this according to babycenter.ca. The name “Ava” was at #8, “Sophie” was at #14 and “Olivia” was found at #15. However a quick search on todaysparent.com reveald that Ava was #1 and Olivia was #3 and Sophia or Sofie was found at #10.
I guess what this means is that my wife and I picked some names that a lot of people seemed to like for girls, which is fine I guess. We all seemed to have our “Ava” in mind when we were figuring out how she would come into this world.
Maci???? Well I can’t find her in the Top 100, but maybe there is only Maci in the world and she happens to be mine. So, it makes me happy that we settled on that name.

The boys? Well in 2008, todaysparent.com had Ethan, Nathan, William, Jacob, Noah, Samuel, Matthew, Joshu, Benjamin and Alexander in their Top 10, in this order.

I just hope we all have a name or a nickname we like. I understand that you can change your name and I know some people who have done so, but for me, it’s too confusing to remember their new name most of the time. For example, one day it’s “Hello Tyrone Jackson”. And then the next time you see him it’s “Sorry sir, but my name is Jamal Anderson now.”

Thank God we don’t do this with street addresses.

At least someone knows us by a name I guess, one that night not be to our liking, but a name to put on a template or a business card somewhere.

Just do me a favour will ya???? Don’t ask me why they call me “Hammer”. I don’t need a bunch of women ringing my doorbell this evening.

Thanks.