For Sale: Baby Names
Aug. 17, 2000 — -- Even in America, that great bastion of free trade, you still can’t sell your babies.
But now there’s help for parents who want to make a quick $5,000 off their child’s name.
If you are expecting a child and want to pocket some quick diaper money, just name the kid Iuma, after the Internet Underground Music Archive. As part of a marketing campaign, the Web site is awarding cash prizes to the first 10 entrants who can verify their baby’s name with a birth certificate and a photo.
“We didn’t have much of an advertising budget, so this seemed like a great way to spread the word about good music,” says Antony Brydon, Iuma’s general manager.
“You’ll be showing your commitment to great music. Your child will have a super-cool name. And you’ll win money. What could be bad?”
Iuma Thurman?
IUMA considers itself one of the oldest music sites on the Internet. Unlike Napster, it charges users and pays artists royalties for music listed on its site. And its mission is to remind the world that there is more to music than Britney and the Backstreet Boys.
In the past, it’s been a hub for such progressive acts as Mermen, Gangsta Bitch Barbie and Sublime.
“We’re on a mission to revitalize music, and we want IUMA on the tip of every tongue in the country,” says IUMA founder Jeff Patterson. “What better way to send our message through every classroom, home, and playground in America?”
Hard-core music fans might want to forgo the big cash payout and opt instead for IUMA’s promise of $100 a month of CDs, digital downloads, concert tickets and merchandise from musicians on the site.
But practical parents might invest the five grand in a college fund. If you could secure an investment that yields a 7 percent annual rate of return, and that child, at 18, would have a nest egg of about $17,000.
Sure, there’s a down side. Once you collect your prize, you’re stuck with the name, and your child has a built-in boogeyman just waiting to pop out of the closet when teacher takes attendance: “Ally, Bryan, Caitlin, … Iuma? Iuma? Where are you? Are you sniffing the glitter glue again?”
These days, $5,000 barely covers the first year of intensive therapy, and professional help might be necessary after finding out your parents eschewed family traditions and named you after a Web site.
But maybe little baby Iuma should just appreciate her first life lesson: That no matter where you are and what you are doing, advertisers will be soaking your brain, telling you what deodorant to rub on your armpits.
Little Baby Breath Mints
If today’s sports fans can appreciate events at Tropicana Field and 3Com Park, can’t they appreciate them with corporately named IUMA, her sister Imodium, and kid brother Certs?
We may have to add registered trademarks to our monikers, but for the right price, why not? Concert promoters, museums and professional sports teams learned long ago that advertisers are a necessary evil to underwrite expenses. Can’t we expect parents to turn to the same corporate sponsorship to get Iuma, Imodium and Certs out of Pampers and into Harvard?
Perhaps, if a child is simply named Pampers or Harvard, the cost of potty training or law school would drop precipitously. Harvard grads tend to mention their alma mater within the first five nanoseconds of meeting someone anyway, so what would really change if a guy from Harvard was named Harvard?
And if Iuma didn’t get the same playground treatment as snotty little Harvard, you could just emphasize the child’s middle name. Iuma Jane Smith could get by just as “Jane.”
And there’s the Hollywood option: Name her Iuma Thurman Smith.
Novelty names are definitely in, especially location names like Montana, Savannah, Dakota and Madison. If you don’t want to admit that you effectively sold your child’s naming rights, just tell the neighbors that Iuma is in north Jersey.
“Parents are searching high and low for that unique name,” says Lara Hoyem of Babycenter.com.
Names that carry corporate trademarks are new to her. “But you can’t rule it out as a trend,” she says.
“If people name kids after singers and athletes, why not after record labels or sneakers? It’s a personal choice.”
For the first time in 35 years, Michael is not the most popular name for newborn boys, according to Babycenter.com, which researches social security documents for its annual list.
Jacob is now the No. 1 boy’s name. Followed by Michael, Matthew, Nicholas and Christopher. The top girls names are Emily, Sarah, Brianna and Samantha.
Girls’ names tend to be more trendy than boys’, and no one denies that pop culture plays a role in the choosing. In 1998, one out of every 200 girls was named Monica. But by the end of the year, a certain White House intern forever entered the American consciousness. Last year, fewer than one in 400 little girls bore that name.
Those of you still assigning blame in last year’s political scandal, please note that William (as in William Jefferson Clinton), remains the name of choice of about 1 percent of new parents, dipping only slightly in popularity, according to babycenter.com.
Of course, what if baby Iuma turns to crime? Would the corporation be at risk? Certainly, Hertz might want to take back its association with O.J. Simpson.
“There’s risk in anything,” says Brydon. “We’re just confident that a child exposed to great music has a better chance of turning out good.”
Buck Wolf is a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is a weekly feature of the U.S. Section. If you want to receive weekly notice when a new column is published, join the e-mail list.