Ugh

This is the dumbest post that I will ever write, but I feel it needs to be written so that I can share with you the tumult of having an intercontinental marriage.

We are having a second child. And so my mind has gone hard to work on what to call the small one. It's a frustrating process. Marta's came simply enough - it was on a headstone in a cemetery in Hiiumaa and I suggested it and it seemed like it fit. For a girl this time 'round we've settled on Anna. We both have many Annas in our families.

Epp's great-grandmother Anna seems to be the main inspiration though. My grandfather Jerry's grandmother was also called Anna. I could spend all day going through them there are so many. But the main reason I like this name is because it's so blank. It's an everyday name that you don't hear everyday anymore. It's up to the kid to define it for herself. That's a good one to have.

The real nightmare is finding a boy's name. We've agreed on a set of criteria that it seems prohibits us from finding a suitable moniker for a masculine child. The name must be the same or similar in Estonian and English AND go with an Italian last name AND be a family name. Christ, what a math equation.

At first I offered up Fred, but then nearly every person I know told me it was an awful name. Yikes, do I have such bad taste in sound? Fred was my great-grandfather. He was born in Canada and I know very little about him. I thought he had a smart name, but I guess I was wrong.

Then Epp offered up Martin, after her great grandfather. But I shot this one down because I didn't think I could cope with having a daughter named Marta and a son named Martin. Too confusing. Plus most of the Long Islandese can't pronounce Marta, either. They call her "Marda." What would they do to poor Martin? Mardy? Ugh.

Then we considered Saamuel - after the name my great grandfather Salvatore took when he lived in America. The only hitch is that Sammy is a name most frequently born by Estonian dogs. And neither of us were really "feeling" it, and feeling it is the most important.

Then Epp offered up Peeter, after her great grandfather Peeter Lenk, who was important enough that if you Google his name, it comes up. He was a school director in Järvamaa in Estonia. Peeter (pronounced Pay-ter) sounds better in Estonian than it does in English, where it is often shortened to just plain "Pete." In Estonia it is shortened to "Pets." This one I was OK with, but my folks don't like it one bit. And I can't say it's my favorite. So I am left with this icky feeling, and I should be feeling good, right? Right?

Then I played with the name "Leo" for a day or two because it doesn't sound bad and it's easy for a tot to spell and it is spelled the same way in both languages. That's nice. But I got weird looks when it came up and I decided to retire the idea.

So, standing on the subway platform at 8 pm one night I tried to think hard about what I could do and I decided that if I followed the "rules" of Italian naming patterns then the first son would be named after my grandfather - Jerry. But Jerry's real first name wasn't Jerry, it was Gennaro, after his grandfather. This Gennaro was an enterprising guy. He left Italy and worked many places from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Rochester, New York. In many ways, he is the archetypal Petrone male -- a guy who travels the world like Ulysses to make a living. From Gennaro to my father to me, we've always been traveling guys. Living out of a suitcase is in our gypsy blood.

"Ugh," I thought again. "I don't think Gennaro is translatable into Estonian." Instead I searched for an Estonian name that sort of sounds like Gennaro and I came up with Joonas.

Joonas (pronounced "Yonas" in Estonia, "Jonas" in English) in the United States seems sort of ideal at the moment. It is inherently Estonian, which is important to me. I want my kids to be fluent in their {literal) mother tongue. I don't want to do to my kids what happened up in my family decades ago where rich and beautiful languages that my family had spoken for hundreds, if not thousands, of years were abandoned just so people could fit in to the Anglo-American culture. I'd give anything to have known some Italian as a child, but instead I am true "homo americanus" -- a human without a past. I don't want my kids to feel that way. They should know where 50 percent of them comes from and be proud of it. I have decided that I really just don't give a shit what the "speak American" crew thinks. I don't sleep with the "speak American" crew, I don't live with them, and as a journalist, I don't work with them. In other words, they can kiss my ass, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, we don't appear to have any Joonases in the family. We've got Johns and Johanneses and Jooseps and Gennaros but no Joonases. Still, from Jerry to John to Justin, my paternal line has been stuck with "J" names. So maybe it's close enough.

Epp says it's a "pretty boy" name in Estonia, which it is here as well, but at the same time, don't "pretty boys" get all the girls? Don't "pretty boys" benefit from being pretty? Don't "pretty boys" get jobs? Or maybe it is bad and I just can't see it. Maybe Joonas is the new Fred in my life.

Anyway, I think it's a name that I am going to privately route for for a few weeks until I get bored with it and the next one comes along. For the time being I'll rest my weary head. I'm tired of banging it against the wall.