Sometimes I have thoughts that I just blurt out. Not all of it is complete nonsense from a nerd.
“Cotton” can be a nickname. It’s not illegal (outside of Florida).
Plus it’s better to have a childhood name to be known by. Keep your child’s legal name outside of peoples’ mouths!–February 9, 2025 at 1:32 AM
Nicknames are great. Nicknames are fun. Nicknames are one of the ways we can anonymize our children enough that they can’t be kidnapped by someone you had a beef with online.
There are people that gather statistical data on our population simply to make fun of the parents for giving their children such dumb/silly/ridiculous/awful/great names. And while the information is public facing knowledge… you don’t have to draw skeevy peoples’ attention to it.
How many kids in the country have the legal first name “Cotton.” Who were born within a certain span of years. With a parent likely to use [whatever social media platform].
It’s much easier to track somebody down if they have an uncommon or somehow noticeable name.
Go ahead and call your kid Cotton. Let everyone call them Cotton (to the point that they THINK it’s related to the real name). But give them a normal sounding and spellable legal name.
To do otherwise is to draw peoples’ attention to your children.
If I were flipping through paperwork, I’d be like “Another Robert. Clickety-clickety, all filled in, moving on to the next” about an easy to type name. But if his name was spelled “RahBurt,” I’m going to remember that name. It’s going to stick in my head. Along with any other information associated with the name.
You could have 9000 people pass through a hospital’s doors with an object inserted in their body, but you’re going to REMEMBER “RahBurt with the tangelo.” And somehow, someway, dozens of steps later, some YouTuber is going to make a video talking about an incident. And they’re going to mention RahBurt’s name.
And that’s his LEGAL name that he would have to pay money to change.
And all the people that have EVER seen RahBurt’s name written anywhere, is going to immediately memory-flash back to WHEREVER they saw his name. A Highlander-the-1990s-TV-Show-style flashback will strike down some ex-hospital worker somewhere and they will remember the embarrassed person desperately trying not to die from sepsis due to the “easy to remove” tangelo that never should have been used for that purpose and was bad at the job.
And a funny comment will appear below a video or post.
And suddenly your son RahBurt is wishing you were dead for not giving him the nickname Cotton.
Because life is a circle. Destruction and repair or destruction and replace. An ouroboros where we can never know exactly where we are in the process of the snake eating itself.
