I recently saw a story suggesting that Elon Musk was named after the leader of a Martian colony in an unpublished novel written by none other than Wernher von Braun. Now, I don’t know if this is true or not, but it did get me to thinking about names. The awesome responsibility that parents have in naming their kids. I suppose many people don’t think much of it, but I remember asking, at a young age, why I was named “Steve.” (There’s no “n” at the end, despite what people throughout my life have tried to “correct.”) An old belief suggests that children might emulate those they’re named after. Of course, some of us just can’t let things go. Nobody else in my family was named “Steve,” and being very Protestant, I wasn’t named after no saint. (Besides, he was Stephen.)
My mom told me a couple of things. First of all, she wanted to name me after her father, Homer. As an adult I think it might’ve been worth the childhood beatings I’d have to have taken, but my father vetoed it. “Steve” was taken from a character in a Dick Tracy cartoon. Mom liked the sound of it and my father didn’t object. I’ve never read Dick Tracy—I’m not much of one for newspapers in general—but I did see that Warren Beatty movie back when it came out. Once I tried to find a character named Steve in the cartoon line-up and I did find that there was a criminal by that name at one point. Mom never told me this and I only found it as an adult, after I’d already decided against a life of crime. But still, names sometimes inspire behaviors. Influence choices. Don’t they?
Children named after their parents sometimes follow in their footsteps. Or those named after a great person in history use that in their internal monolog as they try to attain similar things. Now, I haven’t researched this—I’m just guessing here. But for many years it was unusual to find a German boy named Adolf. There are also names that are retired for someone being, say, the son of God. Mom swore it was wrong to name a boy “Jesus,” even in admiration. She didn’t know that the Anglicized Hebrew name was actually “Joshua,” common then as it is today. Homer was a pagan, and I wondered how my great-grandparents came up with that name. The best I can figure is that they were from upstate New York and there’s a town called Homer in Cortland County. And I wonder if he ever asked his parents why he was named that way.
