My Oldest Son Doesn’t Like His Name!

Linus awaits the Great Pumpkin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hmmmm.  I seemed to have had quite the dilemma here in the urban daddy household last month when my oldest child, 7-year-old “Linus”, told me he doesn’t like his blog name.

He said it’s “yucky”.

“Do you know why I call you Linus on my blog?” I asked him… “Do you even know who Linus is?” I continued.

“Nope”.  He replied.

So I went scrolling back through my older posts and I showed him this post from February 20th, 2008;

https://urbandaddy.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/re-introducing-the-urbandaddy-family/

In that post I explain to my readership that I will be referring to my oldest son as “Linus” instead of the “Happy Boy”.  Not because he’s not happy anymore, but because the similarities between him and the character Linus are striking.

Let’s take note:
Though young, Linus is unusually smart.
Everyone likes to think their child is smart, but we have had Linus tested and we know that he is unusually smart especially in mathematics and music.  He does have very strong language skills (often using words like actually, & similar at the age of 2-years-old.  He makes interesting connections, and has a fabulous memory.  He hasn’t quoted philosophers or found the Great Pumpkin yet, but at the time of this comparison, he was just 3!  Now that he’s 7, he’s doing just that (without the Great Pumpkin).

 

In addition, Linus is almost never without his blue blanket(s), which in our case, is striped.  And we don’t let it out of the house, although, if we did, believe me, it would be with him everywhere.  And like Linus’ blanket, Blankie has magical powers.  If Linus falls and hurts himself, blankie makes the pain feel better.  If he’s scared, Blankie makes him feel less so.

 

I let him read that post and he thought it was pretty cool, but he was not convinced.  He also asked about “Stewie”.

 

So here is what I told him about his “little” brother, our second child, the one we used to call the weed because he was exceptionally long when he was born and continues to grow tall and long.  We started calling him “Stewie”.  Yes, him.  While Stewie is one inch shorter than Linus right now, and wearing the same size clothing for a boy 22 months younger that Linus, we felt Stewie better fit his character.

Our Stewie is a character and a half.  He’s stubborn, he’s tough and I swear he’s trying to kill us.  He’s very on the ball, he’s very bright and has been known to mutter obscenities in a British accent.  No.  That last bit I made up.  Our Stewie is always thinking..  Always plotting and like the character on the show, Family Guy, has a fondness for chatting to animals. 

I mentioned numerous times in the past that I felt Stewie was trying to kill me – he was the cause of my herniated disk in my back and he arrives at my bed at night and just stands there… Staring at me.  It’s kind of creepy, to be honest, but he’s determined to get what he wants even if he has to stand by my bed when I fall back to sleep after I’ve told him to go back to his room.  

Stewie Griffin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for our youngest and only daughter, we called her “Berry” from birth, for reasons I think only family and friends understand, but changed her name to “Boo” after she was featured in the show at Disney this past summer. 

The post about that change is right here; https://urbandaddy.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/a-change-at-the-urban-daddy-blog-bye-bye-berry-welcome-boo/ 

So after all the explaining all this to him, I took to YouTube and showed Linus video about the Linus character on Peanuts and I watched as his serious face turned to a smile when he realized the similarities. 

He turned to me and said; “When I start my own blog, I’m going to refer to myself as Linus too.”

Whew.

Dodged a bullet.

Have any of you had issues with your kids and the names you chose for them on your blog or have you decided to use their real names?