medical names.
Jun. 9th, 2009 05:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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babynamesI don't know if this has been posted here or not, it's about a month old...
http://www.mothersinmedicine.com/2009/05/baby-names_11.html
Warning! Your name or the name of someone you love may be disparaged in this post. Read at your own risk.
It boiled down to two possible names for my daughter: Claudia or Ariana.
Pete wasn't keen on Claudia. "Would you name your son Claude?" he asked.
"No!"
"Then why would you name your daughter Claudia?" he asked practically.
Because I love the name. It's beautiful, it's solid, it's got years behind it, it's not overused. And yet, something didn't quite sit right about it. Finally, when I looked up the meaning, it all came crashing together: Claudia means lame. Of course - from the Latin claudus, from the same root as claudication. I was mortified that this hadn't been immediately obvious to me.
As a physician I'm more finely attuned to the medical implications of names than most, and I don't expect others to associate Claudia with vascular disease. But the name had been spoiled for me. Ariana it was.
Having narrowly averted my own baby naming fiasco, I am sympathetic to parents who inadvertently grant their newborns medically inadvisable baby names. By which I mean, I may inwardly gasp but I keep my mouth shut.
I met a little girl recently named Nevis. Maybe to her parents the name conjures up the beauty of a Caribbean island, but to me, well, she was a living, breathing mole.
Then I came across a variant spelling of Kyle, a name which until then I had considered benign. Chyle is a milky fluid consisting of lymph and emulsified fats, formed in the small intestine during digestion - not a preschooler.
Tanner reminds me of the stages of puberty, Addison warrants an endocrine referral, Lance is asking to be incised and drained, and Brady needs an ECG.
I can medically bastardize most names, but that doesn't mean the general public can. So I don't recommend that parents fret over the medical implications of their name choice. Unless they're planning for a medical career for their child.
Because Melena isn't going to get past round one of the medical school selections process.
http://www.mothersinmedicine.com/2009/05/baby-names_11.html
Warning! Your name or the name of someone you love may be disparaged in this post. Read at your own risk.
It boiled down to two possible names for my daughter: Claudia or Ariana.
Pete wasn't keen on Claudia. "Would you name your son Claude?" he asked.
"No!"
"Then why would you name your daughter Claudia?" he asked practically.
Because I love the name. It's beautiful, it's solid, it's got years behind it, it's not overused. And yet, something didn't quite sit right about it. Finally, when I looked up the meaning, it all came crashing together: Claudia means lame. Of course - from the Latin claudus, from the same root as claudication. I was mortified that this hadn't been immediately obvious to me.
As a physician I'm more finely attuned to the medical implications of names than most, and I don't expect others to associate Claudia with vascular disease. But the name had been spoiled for me. Ariana it was.
Having narrowly averted my own baby naming fiasco, I am sympathetic to parents who inadvertently grant their newborns medically inadvisable baby names. By which I mean, I may inwardly gasp but I keep my mouth shut.
I met a little girl recently named Nevis. Maybe to her parents the name conjures up the beauty of a Caribbean island, but to me, well, she was a living, breathing mole.
Then I came across a variant spelling of Kyle, a name which until then I had considered benign. Chyle is a milky fluid consisting of lymph and emulsified fats, formed in the small intestine during digestion - not a preschooler.
Tanner reminds me of the stages of puberty, Addison warrants an endocrine referral, Lance is asking to be incised and drained, and Brady needs an ECG.
I can medically bastardize most names, but that doesn't mean the general public can. So I don't recommend that parents fret over the medical implications of their name choice. Unless they're planning for a medical career for their child.
Because Melena isn't going to get past round one of the medical school selections process.
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Date: 2009-06-09 10:29 pm (UTC)I have a friend who suffers from a severe nevus, so Nevis as a name makes me chuckle. :P