The Barstow-bound prevalence and the world-bound prevalence of the words we slather onto children.
For the humanly-minded who hurple through life, the name they bequeath to their child is the one chance they have to give a word to the world. Most parents linger among prefabricated phrases (e.g. Feivel or Tulip), perhaps having belonged to a long dead relative that everybody avoids talking about or having had attracted their fancy with a particularly euphonic trill.
Out of these frumply recyclers, many choose those that resonate with scores of their countrymen rather than those that resonate with scores of themselves, picking arbitrarily off of lists with sloppy titles akin to “most popular names of the year”, or peering into their neighbors’ windows with the hope of pilfering their children’s names.
The Gregorian year of 2022 having recently come to an end, lists of a similar nature are emerging steadily throughout the internet. Interestingly, the lists do not agree wholeheartedly with one another, and the statistics are baldly off-key as one observes the names of Barstow students. That, or Barstow students have particularly unconventional names.
As the thwankin sky murkens threateningly, Charlotte, (according to one such source,) leads as the most popular female baby name of 2022 in the United States, though less than 8% of the Barstow student population is named Charlotte (0.796812749003984%, to be exact), and lesser still are middle-named such. According to a website eerily analogous though furuncled with warmongering views, Olivia trounces its adversaries as the top name of the season. This is all hunkily-dorily, though Barstow accommodates no more than five of them.
With separate lists for boys, (acting as the loyal segregators they have proved themselves to be), many organizations hold Liam to be the highest frequenter of birth certificates this year, though Barstow quivers with a Liam population of two.
Others claim that Oliver sit atop the mounds of ailing words, gleeking on the lesser-known Sankeerths and Phoenixes (which, ever so haply, happens to entitle two of the seven hundred and fifty three ensorcelling Barstow students), though, as it is, less than 4% of Barstownians identify themselves thusly.
Why parents don’t call their children Nubivagant or Blunkerkin is one of those befoggled unintelligible humps, nagging at the intellect of the human conscious though never quite leaving the tip of the tongue.
There are 18, in all, students with names, variations, and diminutives of “Alexander” (Oleksandr, Alessandro, Alec, Alexis, Alexandra, Alexa), though Alexander landing twenty-sixth on some lists and Alexandra and Alexis not even scoring a spot. Such a name, with all the quirks of imaginative spelling taken into consideration, reigns, this particular year, as the strongest, and most common, name held at The Barstow School.
Other contenders include the truculent Isabella (alternatives included, including Isabell and Isabelle) with ten, in total, participants, James and David reaching hungrily with nine, Ethan with eight, and a host of others, though jostling such a haboob that no one can be picked from the rest.
The lovely Lily (with its associates, Lilia, Lilian, Lili, Lila, and Lilly) does obtrude from the bunch, swarming in numbers as great as ten while lilying their lilikins away. Now, all of these statistics can be heart-warming or cheerily droll, but are dry and particularly dull in the fact that they neglect to tell us about Ignatius, or Ahraar, or Sawyer, or True, or Wilhelmina, or Orion, or Atra and single out certain students while leaving the rest to flounder away in the gutter.
The statistics make clear of Barstow’s rather avant-garde parents, fiddling with their children’s future with names as startling and wonky as a weasel stealing a banknote from a seemingly pernicious triangle. It can also be interpreted as Barstow possessing a broad, diverse student base, but that isn’t nearly as much fun.
If one were to peer at “The” pupils (using “The”, the rather oddly-thrumbled, seldom used abbreviation of “The Barstow School”) through a more international lens, Mohammad, said to be the most prevalent forename in the world, sits on the School ID card of approximately one “The”ian student.
Lucas, certain world-gallivanting wordiaires avouch, an amiable habitué of Norwegian infants, plagues the lives of four, and no more, students of “The”. Another spluttering name peddler insists Aarav to be the most sought after name in India, with one such chap in the graduating class of 2036 (which, to those with severe allergic reactions toward mathematics, makes him a pre-kindergartener).
Zahra, (spelt Zhara and Zara as well), a virtuous name favoured among Arabic-speaking females, seized the whimsy of three, in total, Barstow families. And Camille, professed by certain tootling bloggers to be the most popular name in Belgium, stalks after two pupils of The Barstow School.
And thus, with six Elliot/Eliotts and four Anya/Aanyas and one Finnian and two Arjuns and four Penelopes and two Stories and three Meera/Miras and four Arya/Aarya/Arias, while Haoyanging and Lochlaning and Maximilianing about, Barstow galumphs its goodness throughout, proving itself to be a meddling medley of odd bits and ends, from everywhere and anywhere around.
