Among the challenging decisions new parents must make is the name of their child. It’s a lifetime commitment, and not something to be taken lightly.
We very quickly settled on his middle name, Joseph. It’s my dad and brothers’ middle name, and Stacy’s grandfather’s first name and brother’s middle name. So, a family name on both sides. Done.
The first name was trickier. Early on I proposed David, my middle name. I’ve always liked the name David (and when I was a little kid, wished it had been my first name). But I was concerned that giving him my middle name might be narcissistic, so we kept our eyes open for alternatives.
In July, I posted about The Naked City. It’s directed by Jules Dassin, and I turned to Stacy at some point, and said, “How about Jules?” Jules works for us on many levels. Most important: my mom’s name is Julie, so it’s a kind of family name. Also, well, I sincerely appreciate the director’s work, and, frankly, his left-leaning politics. The Beatles’ song “Hey Jude” was originally titled “Hey Jules,” and that makes for a good lullaby. And, of course, there’s the pun on “jewels”.
24 hours after his birth, we still hadn’t settled on a name. We like both David and Jules quite a lot, and I found myself vacillating between the two. Earlier I made a comment that “David Joseph,” while a good name, sounds like the name of somebody else’s child. “Jules Joseph” sounds like the name of our child (It helped that Jules is an anachronistic name, which both plays into our love of history, and allows us to own it more.”. As we’re staring at the birth certificate form, Stacy said, “It’s Jules,” and we were done.
So, there you have it. Jules Joseph Merholz.
