lil' nobf

congrats to nobf and dr. nobf!

nobf and dr. nobf just welcomed their little one into the world three-and-a-half weeks early. lil nobf decided he wanted out and that was that. nobf described the delivery experience as "great," the first time i've actually ever heard the process described that way. i'm amped for them and loved that they picked a pretty unusual name (surprisingly, they are not actually calling him lil nobf). i'm not making this up, but nobf actually described one of the other names they were considering as 'star wars-ish.'

last time i was in boston i hung out with nobf, and she shared that she and dr. nobf were actively debating baby names, with a big source of debate being whether the baby would have a name that would obviously indicate his ethnicity / belief system. nobf actually used an hilarious phrase to provoke dr. nobf, asking him if he wanted his child to be able to "pass." that is one very, very loaded word for minorities. to nobf's dismay, he simply shrugged it off, either because he didn't catch the connotations or just didn't care.

this is actually something i've thought about for a long time, long before i was married, much less even thinking about having a family someday. even today, i kind of push off the decision, preferring to push dr. wintermute's buttons by advocating for sci fi names or that all of the kids should have my first name as their middle name (an actual family tradition in my household. the first time dr. w heard that one, we had been dating for about a year and she kind of flipped out. now it's something that our friends like to bring up to tease us. and by tease us, i mean they like to remind me that i'm never that far from being in the doghouse. some would arguably call that the perennial status of all husbands).

anyway, as a kid, i wanted a 'normal' name. being one of two indian kids in the entire school district will do that, much less growing up with a bunch of hicks in the corn fields of ohio. picture this:

me (awkward teenager, having barely summoned the courage to speak aloud to a chick): "hi, i'm wintermute."

chick: "what?"

me: "uhh, wintermute. win-ter-mute."

chick: "say that again? what kind of name is that?" often followed by: "where you from?" or "does your uncle/brother/dad run a motel/quickie mart/liquor stand?" or "the receptionist in at my dentist is indian--are you guys related?" the worst was someone summarily deciding that they would shorten my name for me. unauthorized nicknames are a no-no.

[apparently they hadn't met immigrants who held professional jobs before. not that there's anything wrong with those jobs. in fact, i have family members who work in those professions. but many indian people do other things, too.]

by middle school i had shortened my name to a single syllable. i actually liked having a nickname, much to my parents' chagrin. "we gave you a beautiful name. why don't you use it? are you ashamed of it?"

when i went to college, i summarily decided that i was going to be known by the same name to everyone. and just like that, it was no big deal. since every at emory actually grew up with indoor plumbing and without a rebel flag on their bumper, and many had actually met non-caucasians before, they didn't scrunch their face, they didn't think it was 'weird,' they didn't ask me where i was from. by the end of college, i was convinced that my kids would have unusual, clearly indian, but pronounceable names. since getting married, i'm now open to non-indian names. however, thankfully, both dr. w and i really like unusual names, or ones of non-obvious ethnicity (which makes sense, since our kids will probably appear to be of ambiguous ethnicity).

anyway, big up, nobf!