COOK ON CARLAW: A person by any other name

I have found out the most common names given to babies in Alberta in 2009 were Ethan and Olivia, which surprises me because I would have thought the people of Alberta would have chosen names more indicative of their region like Esso or Chevron, maybe even Shell.

How about TarPit or Pipeline?

Names change with the times.

For the Greeks Aphrodite, Zeus, Apollo and Agamemnon were names you heard every day 4,000 years ago. Now it's Alex, Voula, Chris and Kostas.

The Chinese had names such as Mao, Lao T, and Confucius, now they use names like Chang or Bao.

Assigning names to people is serious business and when people decide they are going to call their kids Tinkerbelle, Peter Pan, Moon Unit or Dweezil, it's because they're thinking their friends will be impressed because they had the courage to give their kids a real different name.

Now the names Ethan and Olivia are fine and so are thousands of others such as Mike, Peter, Samuel, and of course all the names I can't pronounce from hundreds of different countries but are as common to their country as Tom and George are to this part of the world.

But when you name your kid Fantasia, Absolutely Heavenly, Wow, Amazyn, Wacky or Hallelujah, then the parent is just a loon.

Remember, a parent who was named "Heavensent" never names their children anything other than Bill or Jill.

Names are serious business and I know you can change your name when you get older but by then the damage is done.

So I'm glad the parents in Alberta have chosen names that will make their children's lives easier.

But if you were thinking of names that would be different by province, you could name a girl in B.C. "Salchow" after a figure skating move you saw at the 2010 Olympics. You could name an Alberta boy "Half-ton" to go along with the equipment Albertans use. In Saskatchewan, you could name a girl "Wheat Sheaf" to go along with her golden hair or possibly what her father grows. In Manitoba, you could name a boy "Floody" for what the Red River does. In Ontario, how about naming your kid "Debt". That seems appropriate. In Quebec, you could name a girl "Belle" because it says that on their license plate. Newfoundlanders could name all boys "Hibernia" since most or all of them will eventually work there.

Of course, all these names are just suggestions from a guy named Bob, a name that was given after his mother saw him float in a tub of water three weeks after he was born.

Thank God she didn't have to save me from "Sinking."