"What are onomastics?" is what you might be asking yourself if you've read my previous blog entry, "And if its what I think it is, is that really an appropriate blog topic for a mother of three young children?"

The answer is, its not what you're thinking but, wow, you have a filthy mind and I can't believe you went there. Sure, that word is similar and I can see your confusion but I'm definitely not starting a blog about that. I'm not even going to put that word in this entry. What with google and all.

Onomastics is the completely not-dirty study of words and names...here's a dictionary definition:

1 a : the science or study of the origins and forms of words especially as used in a specialized field
b : the science or study of the origin and forms of proper names of persons or places

2 : the system underlying the formation and use of words especially for proper names or of words used in a specialized field

My interest in names is something that my friends have found annoying, disturbing, confusing, useful, interesting, annoying, concerning and/or messed up. Their take on it depends a lot on the particular friend, how the relationship is going, whether or not I am pregnant, whether or not they are pregnant, whether or not Madonna is pregnant and whether or not my online naming community is busy.

It started innocently enough. I was an impressionable young girl of 13. She was a vivacious redhead who played center defense on my soccer team. She had a baby name book at her house. She said I could borrow it. I did. End of story.

First, I just highlighted all the names that I liked. Soon, that wasn't enough and I was also making alphabetical lists of the names that I liked. Then I started seeking out more books and my lists grew longer and my parents started to get suspicious of how quickly I was going through highlighters. There was a lengthy discussion about the evils of huffing (or, as we called it back then, sniffing things). Actually, there wasn't any such discussion but there should have been. Then maybe that whole ugly scene that happened 4 years later could have been avoided.

As a college student spending time with other college students I learned that I would have to hide, as best I could, my enthusiasm for onomastics. Ok. Not so much that first year-and-a-half when I was at Ball State and my best friends were a teen mother and a handful of other girls all of whom were married at the end of the first year. But at Wayne State my friends were not thinking about marriage and babies. Some of them had not even been lesbians yet.

I wasn't thinking about marriage and babies either but its hard to convince people that you would be interested in names for any other reason.

Then, after much resistance, I was brought kicking and screaming to the internet. In a matter of weeks I found an online community that discussed nothing but baby names. Sure, most of them were expectant mothers but many were not. Not only were there discussions of baby names but there were sub-categories. Here you could discuss baby names for girls. There, baby names for boys. Baby names for twins. Baby names for girl/girl twins...and so on. These were my people. I was home.

Fast forward to today and this blog. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with it yet. Mostly because Rick is starting to clean the house and it seems wrong to sit here while he dusts. Besides, its harder to tell him all the ways that he's doing it wrong if I'm not watching.