Blame John Cusack

**Edit**
I wanted to add to this that when I picked the name Nick (Nicholas actually), I thought it was relatively rare. I had only known one person my whole life that was named Nick. Turns out that it was and is a very popular name - Nick actually has quite a few friends also named Nick. In 2004, Nicholas was the 9th most popular name given to new babies. Believe it or not, Jacob was the most popular for the fourth year in a row. For the list of popular names, visit here.

I was reading Sex’s story this morning concerning her kid’s names and how she picked them. It got me thinking about the way I picked out Nick’s name. Believe it or not, I got it from a movie, another great John Cusack film – The Sure Thing. I remember that D and I had struggled for weeks thinking about names for our impending child. We had not been able to agree on any names, girls or boys. We did not know we were having a boy so we had to struggle with both boys and girls names. Choosing a name is not that easy. I wanted something that sounded cool, maybe had a good nickname, good initials, but something that kids would not be able to make fun of. A name is permanent and requires some serious thought.

After weeks of discussing and arguing over names, we were tired of talking about it. We had a few months before her due date and we figured we would come up with something sooner or later. One afternoon we went to the matinee showing of The Sure Thing in Chicago. Now if you have not seen the movie, here is a brief synopsis. Cusack (Gib) is attending an east coast school and a buddy calls him from his SCal college and asks him to come out over Christmas vacation to meet a girl – A Sure Thing. Daphne Zuniga (Alison) plays a fellow student who is dating a guy in SCal. She also wants to go to Cal. for Christmas break. She and Cusack know each other from class and basically are total opposites and dislike each other. So they unknowingly both hitch a ride with a couple also traveling west. Well Cusack and Zuniga argue so much that they eventually get kicked out somewhere in the middle of the country and have to hitchhike to Cal. together. In order to get a ride, she pretends to be pregnant, you know clothes under the shirt. A little old lady picks them up and this is how the conversation goes in the car.

Lady: So what you going to name the baby.
Alison: Well, if it's a girl, Cynthia, and if it's a boy, Elliot.
Lady: Those are lovely names.
Gib: Elliot?! You're gonna name the kid Elliot? You can't name the kid Elliot, no. Elliot is a fat kid with glasses who eats paste. You're not going to name the kid Elliot. You gotta give him a real name, give him a NAME, like Nick.
Alison: Nick?!
Gib: Yeah, Nick. Nick's a real name. Nick's your buddy. Nick's the kind of guy you can trust. The kind of guy you can drink beer with. The kind of guy that doesn't mind if you puke in the backseat of his VW, Nick.

I turned to D and said that’s it, Nick, that is what we are going to name him. She laughed, but a few months later, we were blessed with a healthy baby boy and he was tagged with the name - Nick. Good thing we didn’t have a girl, we still didn’t have a girl’s name picked out. We might have named her Nick as well. So Nick, if you don’t like your name, don’t blame me, it is all John Cusack’s fault. Besides, it could be worse, we could have chosen Elliot.