Sixteen-year-old Crackhead's Guide to Naming Your Baby!

Welcome! We're glad you've chosen the Sixteen-year-old Crackhead's Guide to Naming Your Baby, today's premier baby-naming source. We'll show you how to choose the best possible name for your baby.

Step One:
You'll want to choose a distinctive-sounding name, something that nobody else will have. You don't want your child to be one of a million Olivias, Isabellas, or Sophias in her class, right? Here's a tip - if you've ever heard it before, it's not the name for your baby. Not sure how to pronounce it? Now we're talking?

Do you have your heart set on an "ordinary" name? Can't be convinced to give it up? Spice up that "normal" name with a few extra letters! Love the name Julia? Add a few more letters, and Juliyah will be a hit!

Step Two:
Have you ever been somewhere? Anywhere? Vancouver? Memphis? How about naming your baby after a location on the map? What about good ol' NYC? Any of the five boroughs will do - Brooklyn? Bronx? Not just a fun place to visit - take a trip down memory lane every time you call your kid for dinner!

Step Three:
Consider a last name. Preferably one that's hard to pronounce. When in doubt, add extra letters!

Step Four:
If you can't find a name you like in the Sixteen-year-old Crackhead's Guide to Naming Your Baby, just make one up!

As I sat making out the valentines for the girls' classes at school, I was appalled by the names some of these people inflict on their children. In thirty years, some of those kids are going to want to get a "real" job, and they're going to get laughed right out of the office. That's one resume that's going to get thrown in the trash without even being read, I can tell you.

Pop Quiz: Which of these names are made up, and which are real names that people have given their children?

Tilon
Tilapia
Tequila
Keane
Keahn
Kane
Kaden
Aiden
Braeden
Raydon
Jaden
Jacek
Jaylen
Caylen
Saynen
Brooklyn
Harlem
Austin
Dallas
Houston
Jamaica
Queens
Princess
Aria
Aarya
Addison
Addisyn
Adissyn
Barbie
Bambi
Sage

I double-dog dare you to see if you can figure out which of these are real kids from school. I was dying. I mean, sure, I've been accused of weird taste in names. When I was pregnant, names like Evangeline and Gwendolyn were tossed around, and my girls have what some would consider "fancy-pants" names. But whatever. They can have short nicknames now, and if they ever put their name on a resume, they won't have to be ashamed of themselves or of me.

Another post is brewing about how today was a fabulous day, the Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, etc., but for right now, amuse yourselves by imagining what you'd name your baby if you were a Sixteen-year-old Crackhead. My girls would be Mackenzyie and Schkuylar.