For Sale: Baby Names
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These days, $5,000 barely covers the first year of intensive therapy, and professional help might be necessary after finding out your parents eschewed family traditions and named you after a Web site.
But maybe little baby Iuma should just appreciate her first life lesson: That no matter where you are and what you are doing, advertisers will be soaking your brain, telling you what deodorant to rub on your armpits.
Little Baby Breath Mints
If todays sports fans can appreciate events at Tropicana Field and 3Com Park, cant they appreciate them with corporately named IUMA, her sister Imodium, and kid brother Certs?
We may have to add registered trademarks to our monikers, but for the right price, why not? Concert promoters, museums and professional sports teams learned long ago that advertisers are a necessary evil to underwrite expenses. Cant we expect parents to turn to the same corporate sponsorship to get Iuma, Imodium and Certs out of Pampers and into Harvard?
Perhaps, if a child is simply named Pampers or Harvard, the cost of potty training or law school would drop precipitously. Harvard grads tend to mention their alma mater within the first five nanoseconds of meeting someone anyway, so what would really change if a guy from Harvard was named Harvard?
And if Iuma didnt get the same playground treatment as snotty little Harvard, you could just emphasize the childs middle name. Iuma Jane Smith could get by just as Jane.
And theres the Hollywood option: Name her Iuma Thurman Smith.
Novelty names are definitely in, especially location names like Montana, Savannah, Dakota and Madison. If you dont want to admit that you effectively sold your childs naming rights, just tell the neighbors that Iuma is in north Jersey.
Parents are searching high and low for that unique name, says Lara Hoyem of Babycenter.com.
Names that carry corporate trademarks are new to her. But you cant rule it out as a trend, she says.