By far the most common question I get about my book is “What do you think motivates people to name their kids these things?” I don’t think anyone could come up with one single answer, but the fact that these kinds of names show up in every census in every state, not to mention that everyone has their own first-hand stories of so-called “bad baby names,” suggests there’s more to it than just a trend.

In general, my theory is that most people who name their kids crazy things fall into one of three categories: they are legitimately just being silly, they are well-meaning but ignorant of the name they’re bestowing, or they have some personal and special meaning behind the given name. I’ll talk about the first two later, but “Tm” left an interesting comment on Assignment 1 that talks to the last point.  The following is from a personal history that Tm sent me that expands on  the story some as a father explains to his son the origin of his interesting name:

“Ever since I set eyes on [your mother] she was the only one for me. So when she turned [my proposal of marriage] down I was a very much upset….So I told her that I was going away but if she should ever change her mind, just send me one message, ‘Return Richard’, and I would return as fast as my horse could bring me. At least in this case, the old provervb ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’, proved true, for it wasn’t many months until the message came to me, ‘Return Richard’. It was such a precious message that when your were born I insisted that Return Richard was to be your name.”

Now I think that’s romantic, and a story like that makes a name like Return not so hard to take, at least from my perspective.  A name bestowed for a special reason doesn’t have quite the same bite.  I suspect stories like this lie behind many of the crazy names in history, but what do I know?