HelpThePoorBabies.com

Out here there's been a minor rash of tragic baby misnamings recently -- people getting together, having a child, and then giving it a painfully silly name. I suggest that there should be an organisation (and this is the innovation which changes this from a stupid, tedious rant into a stupid, tedious, marginally relevant rant) which will operate a web site to deal with this situation (thus cleverly taking advantage of the power web sites have to solve all problems) on which people will suggest stupid or offensive first names and then pledge money towards the first infant so christened. When a parent proves that they have given their infant one of the handles on the list (without adding a more serviceable middle name, which would be cheating), the money which has accrued to that name goes into a trust fund to help finance therapy for the child later in life, or for them to blow on drugs, or to do whatever they feel might help. Because of the system of pledges, the worst names would bring the greatest compensation -- "Thehulk" or "Zymurga" might get a few hundred dollars, "Corpsebreath" several thousand, and so on.

That's it, but the especially keenly interested can read on into the Appendix -- I have taken the time to enumerate certain of the benefits of this scheme:

1) The parents themselves won't directly profit and the kids will have some compensation for being called "Petal" or "Kansas"; parents may still choose silly names in order to fund their kid's education, but this is fine because: a) since poorer parents will have a much stronger incentive to do so, children may have a chance for a university education who would not have otherwise; b) on a larger scale -- since wealthier people are more likely to contribute money to a cause this frivolous, it effects a redistribution of wealth without any new taxes or revolutionary bloodbaths.

2) There will be more people with silly names in years to come, so that: a) being introduced to people will become more interesting and you will have to pay attention at parties instead of just calling everyone 'Dave'. b) people with silly names will feel less alone, and everyone may relax about the whole silly names issue.

3) The thing will feed on itself as the shock-quotient of today's stupid names declines so that there is continuous progress in this area. (Today's "Bonham" and "Tobin" become tomorrow's "Scrotus" and "Zinzinzilla".) Moreover, the pool of "normal" names will become diluted, so that "Jennifer" and "Longjohn" begin to seem equally valid and no names seem dull.