Jerkface Magoo

A few days ago there was man passing through the dog park with his highly energetic poodle. He was new to the area and was on the lookout for places to bring his dog to play. He greeted us dog park regulars and took a look around to see what the park had to offer them. As he left, he called his dog to go.

"Smarty! Let's go!"

We all stopped and turned to him. I asked, "Did you just call your dog Smarty?"

He laughed, "Yes, his name is Smarty Pants."

This got me to thinking about the names we chose for our pets, kids, cars...etc. Looking back on the names you have chosen for your child/pet, would you change them now that you have gotten to know them? I doubt this man could have known for certain that his dog was going to be intelligent (although poodles are incredibly smart dogs) and he must have hoped and prayed that his dog wouldn't grow up to be dumber than a doornail.

In the series of books that I am currently reading, there are certain communities of people that do not name their children until they reach their second birthday. This is due to the fact that children have increased risk of dying young due to war, famine, disease and all those dreadful happenings that readily occurred before modern medicine and sanitation intervened. So these people would wait until the child turned 2 before giving it an official name. What if that were still the tradition today? Do you think that parents would be naming their children the names that they had expected to initially? I hear stories all of the time about parents who have a name all picked out for their unborn baby, and then the baby is born and the parents decide that the child does not at all look like the name they wanted for it. They meet the kid and suddenly the name does not fit and it's back to the drawing board.

Perhaps the pressure of finding that perfect name would suddenly disappear when you have 2 years to figure it out. I feel that by getting to know the kid and learning the blossoming personality would definitely help with determining a name that really works. Cause c'mon, we all know someone who does not (at all) suit his/her name. There are some people whose names I cannot, for the life of me, remember because the name just does not suit the person!

I feel that with a dog, a dog needs to be named immediately because it needs to learn its name and it needs to know when it's being acknowledged so that it can be trained. Not naming a dog until it is 2 is basically the same as not naming a kid until it is 14. That's a bit too long. A think a kid could grow up normally without having a name until 2, but not a dog. However, it would be pretty cool if we could get to know our dogs before we name them.

After adopting Axel, I liked his name and I felt as though it suited his quite well. But honestly, if I could have waited to get to know him and name him afterwards, there is no doubt in my mind that his name would be Jerkface Magoo. Anyone who knows him would understand why this is the perfect name for my dog.

1) He's a jerk - sometimes. But when he's a jerk, he's SUCH a jerkface.
2) He's a complete dork with a semi-droopy eye, and therefore a Magoo.

But I love him anyway.