What's in a Name?

First, congratulations to Shannon W on the birth of her second child - a girl. Yeah! Also, thanks for the prompting to blog away.

I laughed several years ago when a friend of my mom's proudly announced that he had purchased the URLs of his kids' first names. (Think http://www.megan.com/ or http://www.yourfirstname.com/). This very proud father of two adult children was paying annual fees to reserve the rights to those URLs just in case his kids ever wanted to use them. It seemed like a waste of money to me.

Flash forward to last week when I'm curious about the URL for my own daughter. Have you ever searched for the Web site of your child's first name? Little K has a somewhat unique name. It's not popular like Jennifer or Amy. Maybe I could reserve the URL for her. After I carefully type the URL into the browser, I hold my breath as a lot of Flash animation appears. It's an online portfolio for a former pop singer who also apparently did/does some acting and modeling. Okay, you're thinking, it seems pretty harmless.

(If you know my daughter's name, you really should check out the URL.) The photos are a little more revealing than I'd like associated with my daughter. Maybe I should try to buy the URL from the current owner. Ugh. I felt disappointed... until I realized how crazy I was being. I actually was falling for that trap.

What's in a name? For me, when I hear Little K's name, it brings a proud smile to my face because her name translates to an amazing young girl with an independent spirit. In the end, I don't really care what the URL says. I know my girl. But I had to laugh at my reaction as a mother. Who'd have thought 10 years ago when I was first conquering email that I'd be doing this stuff? What funny creatures we are!

Until the next nap time...