The column never reveals the name, but I bet, given the pop culture and classical literature expertise of this board, we could figure it out.
The only possibility that I have come up with so far is “Hermione,” but that doesn’t seem quite right.
What else could it be? It’s got to be “from literature,” “recently TV,” the name of a character who is “a reader,” and a name that people “really, really” hate.
Brick? That’s the name of the book loving kid on The Middle and is also the name of one of the lead characters in Tennessee Williams’* Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.* The only problem is that in the sea of ridiculous names out there these days, Brick is far from the worst.
Wow, Brick. That’s a pretty good suggestion. It’s not the worst, but I can really see someone’s friends and family really hating it when told about it.
Another reason to give your kid a normal first name and reserve the weird stuff for the middle name.
All of our kids have very common first names (well, one is a little usual but it’s a ‘real’ name, not some neonomen thing) and unusual to very unusual middle names. For the girls, they can discard that name at marriage if they choose… or, in the case of our youngest, swap a first name she doesn’t like for a rare and beautiful middle name everyone admires.
Boy’s name of a character from literature that likes to read and has been used on TV. It’s not clear if the TV character is also a reader like the literature character. Or even if the literature and TV characters are the same, or only share a name.
Googling “TV characters who are readers” brings up “Sawyer-- Lost.” I did not watch Lost, and am not familiar with the character, but it definitely fits the bill as a literary character as well.
However, I’m not sure why people would hate it, unless “Everybody” means “Our parents.” Last name-sounding first names are very in now. We have a ton of kids at the preschool whose names end in -son, including two with the same name, which I would not in a million tries have guessed that two sets of parents would come up with independently. And a full quarter of the kids with last names as first names are girls.
I am old enough to be the grandparent of a soon-to-be child, and I hate Sawyer, but I would think it would be the sort of thing 20-somethings would go for-- unless Sawyer on Lost was a real jerk aside from being a reader, or something.
