the name thing

In my job, I take down names.  That's not the only thing I do, but I pay special attention to names.  I like names.  Maybe it's because I've got an unnamed baby in my belly, or maybe it's because I try to stash each name away in case I hear it again.  It never ceases to amaze me how many kids have different last names from at least one of their parents.  Sometimes kids have different last names from both of their parents.  Sometimes there are homes where 3 kids and both parents have the same last name and only 1 kid has a different last name.  Do they feel totally left out?

I understand that sometimes there are totally wonderful reasons for having a different last name from your kid or your parent, but in so many of the families that I deal with, it seems like the moms are just haphazardly going from one guy to the next for the sole purpose of having as many kids with different names as they can.  I don't get it.  If you aren't in a committed relationship with the dude, and don't plan to be, why not give the kid your own last name?  At least there would be some unity with the kids.  I grew up in a family where all four of us had the same last name so I never knew any differently, but I remember thinking it was bizarre when my friends had different names from their parents.  Maybe the kids that have the different names don't know any different and don't care?  Any feedback on that?

And my next thing about names...what is wrong with people?  It is not necessary to include hyphens, apostrophes, and/or random capital letters in names.  It is not necessary to name all 7 of your kids after yourself in some way or another.  I have come across some of the craziest, made up sh*t in my job.  Why would you MAKE UP a name?  We were talking about names the other day and I was telling the da da about some of the crazy names I've heard at work.  He had a great idea...he said that every time someone wants to add a new name to the world, they would have to pay $25,000 to register it as an official name.  If you did not want to choose a name that had already been previously registered, then you pay the fee.  If you don't want to pay the fee, you choose from the list.  LOL.  I'm not sure that will ever happen, but it'd sure make things simpler.  Have you been on babynames.com lately?  There are thousands of names to choose from.  Come on people, choose from the list. 

~C~