The Names

As mentioned, part of an elf's job is to discreetly take down the child's name and get this information to Santa. Santa of course already knows the name, he just occasionally needs a few reminders.


If the child looks like it can speak properly, I incorporate a little 'and what's your name?' into the 'hi, i'm an elf, welcome to the grotto' spiel. This rarely works. I can't respond to their shy mumblings or incomprehensible child's voice with my usual polite nod of the head. I actually have to write the name down. I take what I've heard and hazard a guess, 'What's that, Robert?', 'No, Michael' the child/and or parent will angrily reply. 


The other tactic is to ask the parent. That's simple enough, you're thinking. Well it is, except that if they're small, sometimes I can't actually see them from behind the till. I often don't know how many of them there are and I certainly don't know their gender. This can often be a problem even when I can see the child, and sometimes even after I've got the name. I can ask a clumsy, 'what's the child's name?' but that feels a little obvious and impersonal. So I usually settle for a 'What's h... name?' and make a sound somewhere in-between 'his' and 'her'. I have on occasion used 'it'. That's not something I'm proud of.


Then there's the names themselves. Now, having been a child cursed/blessed with an unusual name myself I know the pain of having to constantly spell it and having it constantly misspelt. I can't judge a child for having a strange name. I can probably judge the parents though.


Here are some of my favourites:
 - Rihanna: Unless you have some Arabic connection or really love sweet basil (that's what the name means apparently) calling your child Rihanna suggests you want nothing more for them to produce frustratingly catchy  pop songs and spend as much time as possible wearing as little as possible. There are far more baby Rihannas tottering around Belfast than you imagine.
 - Kai: Way more popular than it should be considering the only thing I can link it to is the spawn of Wayne Rooney.
 - Aaliyah: After the not that famous R&B singer who died. I'm sure she'd be pleased.
 - Phoenix: Really? It was a girl by the way. Just one. There was also an Atlanta. Different family.
 - Any name you want hyphenated with Lee/Leigh. Jamie-Leigh, Demi-Leigh, Courtney-Lee, Stevie-Leigh. Want a new baby name? Just add Leigh. Want to call your girl a boy's name? Just add Leigh. Alexaleigh (this time all one word) was my favourite so far. I hear there's a cure for that now.


And on top of all of these there's names that we're pretty sure have just been made up. Stick a couple of syllables together, no worries. 


A joy of the job is telling Santa the name and us all having a good chortle about how ridiculous it is before bringing the child in. This can sometimes backfire if granny etc is standing behind us.


One other particularly local issue when taking down the names is the Irish language. Due to being born on one side of the road and not the other, I do not have the instinct ability to spell Irish names. When a parent comes in and says a name that is pronounced phonetically 'Sear-sha', I write 'Searsha'. But Irish being Irish, it is of course 'Saoirse'. Why spell things phonetically when you can have so much more fun adding extra letters? So I hand the ticket to the parent, receive the smirk and the 'that's not how you spell Saoirse' and see the flashing 'Ice is a big bigoted protestant elf' sign overhead. Even when it's an Irish name I know how to spell something always gives me away. 'You're one of the only people to spell Shea right,' a mother complimented me once, 'She forgot the fada*,' her partner mumbled. My co-elf Bounce has a free pass, she's originally from Mauritius so no-one expects her to be able to spell any of the names, but she does have to put up with more than one person asking if Bounce is her actual name - them traditional Mauritian names are really weird.


Thankfully in this day and age there is unlikely to be any retribution for my inability to spell Irish, though I can't help but feel the child is a bit more suspicious of my elfishness.


*if you don't know what a fada is and would like to you should check out http://lmgtfy.com/?q=fada