I am looking at a whiteboard for February Birthdays and I am seeing things like Christalynn and Annsleigh, and I just want to know what happened to a good old fashioned Sarah. This “leigh” legacy is getting out of hand! We have names that prove vowels are officially an endangered species. When you see Destinyleigh handwritten on a piece of wood, you know you have reached peak tragedeigh. It is a level of creative naming that makes every baker and teacher reach for the aspirin. Imagine trying to pipe Jeighden onto a SpongeBob cake without your hand cramping up. These parents didn’t just pick names; they invented phonetic adventures that spell-check simply cannot handle. We have Xevelyn on a car window and Kholton on a baby beanie, and I am just sitting here wondering how a substitute teacher is supposed to survive the first day of school. It is a bold new frontier of phonetics where “unique” is the only rule and the alphabet is merely a suggestion. I mean, look at Smerlin in the Honda! That is a five-star driver name if I ever saw one. We are all just living in a world of Jeighdens and Xailens now, and quite frankly, it is a riddle that I am not quite smart enough to solve.

The handwritten list of unique names on lined paper is the ultimate symbol of the naming crisis. Shammon and Quamice? It sounds like we are naming characters in a space opera rather than actual human beings who have to apply for jobs eventually. These bad kids names are a reminder that while we want our children to stand out, we might be setting them up for a lifetime of correcting people at the coffee shop. I feel for every Loghan Brooke celebrating their seventh birthday under a teepee banner. It is a lovingly judgmental look at a generation of parents who decided that silent letters were the ultimate status symbol. We laugh because if we did not, we would have to acknowledge that there is probably a child named Wifi-leigh out there somewhere. I hope these birth certificates are printed on very sturdy paper, because they have a lot of work to do. Stay unique, kids, but please, for the love of all that is holy, tell your parents to use a normal vowel once in a while.