Alex Williams has written this New York Times “First Person” feature about his struggle to find the perfect name for his baby. Williams uses an inoffensively deft touch to address an issue freighted with self-importance, which is more than can be said for a lot of the people he quotes. He’s in the style section, so a certain level of absurd conceit is inevitable. For example:
Looking beyond the Top 1000 [baby names] was not enough for Jenn Lewis-Gordon, a waitress in Lakewood, N.J. She and her husband crossed off any name that had been used more than 100 times in the entire country in the last year. This left “Ptolemy,” “Bombay,” “Thursday” and “Ocean,” as well as “Atlas,” their ultimate choice. “I feel as though he’ll be less likely to be a follower if he starts out from the beginning being different,” Ms. Lewis-Gordon, 35, explained.
Ladies and gentlemen, the modern condition.