There was a 90's television show called "Father Ted", a comedy based around three Irish priests living together. It was feckin' hilarious, and though I'm not quite sure how my family watched it back then (I guess living in close proximity to Canada, where it was aired as well, was the case.)

Anyways, there's four major characters:

Father Ted Crilly, Father Dougal McGuire, Father Jack Hackett, and the maid, Mrs. Doyle.

Of particular note in this is Dougal and Mrs Doyle. These are the names of my two cats. Mrs Doyle is the cat in the picture wearing a cowboy hat. She is a dainty, quiet, and nice cat who likes people but otherwise stays out of the way. She was named after the character on the show for her personality traits.

Now, for the next picture:

This is Father Dougal McGuire, or just "Dougal" for everyday yelling at cats-ness. He was adopted as a kitten from the humane society, and the name Dougal was granted upon him for the sake of naming traditions with the family's cats.

Dougal grew, and his name became even more fitting. He is quite possibly the least smart cat I have ever owned, is incredibly clumsy, has a short attention span, and despite being a large cat, is also incredibly hyper and always finding people for attention.

What do cats have to do with names and destiny? Quite a lot. I think the name of someone is far more important than we really think. I don't mean destiny in a supernatural sense, but rather, the form that someone will take as they progress ever more into their future.

Dougal was just a kitten, with no insight into his personality when he was adopted. Perhaps by his name, my family molded what sort of creature he was going to be like, as Dougal the character was an unsmart, curious, laughable sort of person. A little leeway for kitty stupidity, or a higher tolerance for him getting into places that he shouldn't have been in could have shaped his personality into one that fits his name.

What started this chain of thought for me was how a lot of my friends were starting to have children, and would go on Facebook for baby name suggestions. Their friends would idle suggestions such as "Neveah" (heaven spelled backwards), the main characters' names in Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, "modern" names with letters switched out like Huntyr, Treyvonn, etc, to things that are spelling abominations that would have probably doomed the poor child named those things to a terrible elementary schooling where they couldn't spell their own name because their parents were being "edgy and cool".

Caveat aside, naming a child is a big deal. I don't think the whole deal should be called "baby names", because that child isn't going to be a baby their whole life. Neveah may sound cute now, but in 10 years it's going to have run its course. It's not nearly as bad of an offender as quite a few other names, such as Diamond, which are stereotypically rendered as "stripper names", making it difficult to be taken seriously.

This trail of thought will be continued in another post.