My 9yo named his paper bird Primary

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty

Isn’t that a great title? Sounds like the title of a mothering memoir …

Anyway, it says just what happened: My 9yo came home from school yesterday with a paper bird he’d made in art class (he LOVES art class), and as he was swooping it around he said, “His name is Primary.”

“Primary??” my 7yo burst out. “That’s a girl’s name!”

Isn’t that funny? I might’ve thought the reaction would be, “Primary’s not a name!” So I was thinking about why he would think it was a girl’s name … I immediately thought it looked like a mashup of Primrose and Rosemary, which made me kind of love it. But my 9yo insisted the bird’s a boy, and Primary’s a boy’s name, and I can see that too — it was kinda reminding me of Peter and Pope because of its similarity to primacy. All of which is hilarious, this wondering whether Primary is a boy’s name or a girl’s name, because there’s some truth to the idea that Primary is not a name in that I’ve never seen it used as one … but also that it is a name, now that it’s been bestowed as one. Who here will be adding Primary to their baby name list? 😉

P.S. This same boy also named his stuffed lion Bandaids when he was tiny. So Bandaids is now also a name. 😛

8 thoughts on “My 9yo named his paper bird Primary”

  1. My daughter named her baby doll Abelia (\uh-BAY-lee-uh\), a name for which I still have no idea where she got it because I’ve NEVER heard it before, or since, and yet it seems like it should actually be a name.

    As a kid, I once had a family of paper doll mermaids all named after different parts of the body. Deltoid is definitely a boy’s name, and Patella is definitely a girl’s.

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  2. The first doll my daughter named herself was called Chia. Which is…interesting and I can’t think of anything but chia pets when I hear it. She also has another doll named Azucena. I suggested a bunch of names for her doll like Susie and Jenna, etc. and threw out Azucena mostly to be funny since it’s a bit of a mouthful for a small girl (she was 2 at the time) but that’s the one she latched on to. Other people think it’s weird but it makes me happy that I get to use one of my favorite Spanish names in some capacity since I know I’d never get my husband on board with that one!

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  3. I just love conversations between little ones (though, they would both probably heartily object to my use of the adjective little in association with them)! They are always so much fun to eavesdrop on. During the summer, I’m a nanny for two boys, who are only 13 months apart in age, and the conversations they have make me die with laughter.

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