Today I was reading one of my fave blogs, Alpha DogMa. I hadn’t been in a little while, so I read back through a few posts, and hit on this one, which brilliantly satirizes the new baby names in her local paper. Go read it, you’ll enjoy it!

Top honours go to her sixth category, “Mommy and Daddy love Scrabble! The Letter-K is worth FIVE POINTS!” which points out such winners as: Kaysen, Kelson & Konar. I laughed out loud at these, really I did. And then I saw Karter.

Now, Carter, as a first name, is bad enough. Come on, people, can we dispense with the last-name-as-first-name trend already? GAWD…I remember when I first moved out here to Alberta…I was stunned to hear these names when out at the park or the zoo. Honestly: it was a chorus of “Hunter, come here!” or “Kennedy, leave MacKenzie alone!” and wouldn’t ya know it, I finally heard the one I had secretly believed was my own personal tool for mocking the likes of Hunter – Archer. Really! I would say, “Hunter? Someone named their son Hunter? What’s next, Archer? LOLOLOL!” And then, I heard a woman calling her little overly-trendily-dressed (I mean really! Tommy Hilfiger for a toddler?) two-year-old. And. His. Name. Was. ARCHER.

But I digress. (There’s a whole other post in there somewhere on the use of medieval occupational surnames as 21st century first names). As the owner of a perfectly legitimate ‘K’ name (Katherine) I hatehatehatehate it when people hijack our legit letter for illegitimate purposes. To wit: Kristine. Karter. Kameron. It’s just as bad as – if not worse than – all those people out there who stole legitimate ‘Y’s for use in their names and threw the poor ‘I’ out on it’s butt. Yes, Camryn, I’m talkin’ to you.

So. Karter. Poor guy, it’s not his fault, but I kinda hate him. What were his parents thinking????

Haven’t you ever wanted to ask the mother of Maddisyn whether she let the Nitrous Oxide wear off before she wrote out her daughter’s birth registry paperwork? I mean, I’ve given birth twice, and if I hadn’t already decided on my two classic-yet-feminine daughter’s names, who knows if the post-partum euphoria would have induced some kind of bad-name-and-even-worse-spelling madness?

I’m sooooo sorely tempted to ask this of two families I know who have wrongfully hijacked my beloved letter K. The first is an old friend I haven’t talked to in years. She is the victim of marrying into a family of bad-K-hijackers. Her husband has a name that should, by all rights, be spelled with a C. But his parents spelled it with a K (and, to his discredit, he didn’t run out the second he turned 18 and change his name to the proper spelling!). He has many (as in, like, SEVEN) siblings, all with names beginning with the letter K. Some of them are legit K names. Some are C-names that have hijacked a K. Some are just made-up names beginning with K.

So, my friend has a nice C-name, properly spelled. She marries K-man. Also a nice name, but criminally spelled. They buy a dog. Koltrane. After Jazz Great John Coltrane, which is their perogative, but spelled with a ‘K’, not a ‘C’ which — forgive me — should not be their perogative. But there it is. Then, things got dangerous. They had a daughter, whom they named a lovely, legitimate K-name. But again with the K! This is getting into second generation badness here. And then a 2nd daughter, also a K.

And then there’s another family I know…mom and dad both have normal, properly-spelled K-names…awww, innit cute? What a sweet coincidence that should have ended there. But sadly, it didn’t. They have a daughter, whose name is one of those over-trendy modern names that originally belonged to an Australian one-hit wonder (well, she did have a recent if short-lived comeback) that happens to begin with a K. But they then got creative with the rest of the spelling, to the point where you’re not exactly sure how to pronounce it. But! It gets better! They have another child…this time a boy. Awwww…million dollar family. Sweet. But what shall they name this little miracle? They already represent a triumvirate of Ks, so my guess is that they set off on a search for a boy’s name starting with a K. It’s not really too hard, you know. There are lots of decent ones out there: Kyle. Keith. Kent. Kendall. Kieran. Kenneth.

No. They went with a nice, classic C-name that they just hijacked a K for.

I have to admit, I knew these people for a few years before it all came together. I never really thought much of the mom & dad’s names both starting with the same consonant. And the kids names are nothing to really trip the bad-name-radar. But then I saw the little boy’s name written inside his backpack, and it hit me like a slap: C-name-spelled-with-a-K. Sister’s name starts with a K and: check, mom & dad too. And ya know? The whole family slipped down just the slightest notch in my esteem.

So, to anyone out there in internet-land who’s pregnant (or whose partner is) please consider us poor K-owners when you spend hours musing over names for your new addition. Go ahead and use a K! There are scores of great, classic, trendy, sassy or serious names out there that are LEGITIMATELY SPELLED WITH THE LETTER K.

But please, for the love of K, don’t make your Carter a Karter!