Naming enthusiast

Jolly declared that he got a phone call on his toy phone, "from [his] sister."

Naturally, as existence of a sister was news to me, I asked what her name was.

He cast about and stalled a moment then said, "Her middle name is... Goldi... Goldi... [big pause] Goldicurious!"

That naturally made me curious: did his sister have a first name, too?

Jolly thought about it some more and then came up with, very confidently, "Curious-on-the-Ferry".

So there you have it. Curious-on-the-Ferry Goldicurious Kindergarten [stand in for our surname]. That is your HOT INSIDER TIP for the next baby betting pool!

This is extra endearing to me because I'm a massive name enthusiast and collect names the way other people collect baseball cards. I spend a great deal of time thinking about names and their trends and perceptions... and Jolly totally just nailed several elements of naming.

One, the first name is totally Puritanical Virtue name soundalike, updated for the atheist islander lifestyle. It's seriously right in keeping with names like Job-Rakt-Out-of-the-Ashes or Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned. (Those Puritans really did know how to live it up with their naming, though these are admittedly extreme examples.) Anyway, I am deeply charmed by Jolly's inventiveness and reencapsulation of a historical feel. It's certainly much better than many actual Puritan names, like Preserved, Fly-Fornication, and Sin-Deny.

Goldicurious is on the other hand a clear mashup between Curious George and Goldilocks, two books he happened to have sitting out on the sofa in front of him when he was coming up with a name on the shortest gestation period ever. Mashup invented names are all the rage.

Thus, Jolly's choice totally embodied my personal naming philosophy that a more daring, aggressively retro first name choice is best paired with a more on-trend middle name. Well played, son, well played!

(As for the repetition of the "curious" element between first and middle names - one person's pleasing rhythm is another person's annoyingly singsongy, and vice versa, so de gustibus and all.)

Update: When recounting this to Ephiny that night, Jolly said his sister was Curious-on-the-Boat. I hope that he was just using a nickname for the same sister, because those are WAY too close for sibling names!