Since Mark’s weblog has been pronounced dead for some time (though he told me he’s tried to resurrect it, but Blogger has foiled him repeatedly), I’ve decided to do a wee bit of Utah-bashing in his stead.
I talked to him earlier tonight, and he mentioned that he got the call from his folks that his sister-in-law had gone into labor, and that he should expect to be an uncle sometime soon.
He then did the math: November 14th minus nine months is February 14th….Ew.
Mark, unlike the vast majority of Utahns, including his sister-in-law (Angela), is not Mormon. Angela is very religious, and Mark’s brother, Eric, was kind of like, well, whatever. This has Mark somewhat concerned about the name of the child.
Mormons tend to give their children…unusual names. There is even such a thing as the Utah Baby Namer, which lists some of the more ridiculous monikers that people have come up with. Some of them are clearly bullshit, but Mark went through and recognized some of the ones that I thought were made up.
The one name that generated particular concern on my part: Moroni (pronounced more-oh-nee, not how you think it’s pronounced).
Moroni is an angel of the Mormon Church, and many Mormons name their sons after him. This is a fine practice if Angela and Eric wish to stay in Utah, and the kid to stay in Utah for all his life.
Were he to ever leave Utah for a non-Mormon resplendent place, however, he’d never hear the end of it:
“So your parents actually named Moron? God, you must be really dumb.”
If it’s a girl (nobody knows until the little one decides to come out), there’s also dozens of fairly bizarre but comparatively innocuous names. So everybody’s waiting to see what Eric and Angela come up with.
Or they could just be original and name it Mark (or some variation thereof), David, Daniel, John (or some variation thereof), Joseph, or Adam.
God knows there aren’t nearly enough of any of those out there…
And Mark, if you see anything else related about Utah you’d like me to bash, do let me know.