I almost named my son after an iPhone app. Really.

Yes it's true. Totally mental, but true. Before you get your judging sticks out though let me explain first. I did almost call my first son the same name as an iPhone app (iPad too if you want to get really techno about it), but it was completely by accident. Even though I do own an iPhone, I'm not one of those Apple freaks who puts stickers all over my car and queues overnight with 15 year-olds when the next store opens. So what the hell happened then? Well, I'll tell you.

Long before babies were officially on the agenda, my husband and I had often discussed children and occassionally even brought up name options (as you do). During one of these moments my husband stated that if we were ever to have a boy, he wanted to name our son after his grandfather who was very kind to him when he was a child. I had no problem with this, except for his name was Cyril. Not being pregnant at that stage I kind of agreed to it anyway and didn't think too much about it again, until fast forward to a few years later when I'm actually pregnant and have found out we're having a boy. Reality sunk in.

Now, there's nothing really wrong with the name Cyril, except that it's terribly old-fashioned and not in the kind of way that's now cool (apologies if that's your name). So to get my head around how this was going to work I insisted to my husband that if our son was going to be called Cyril then he needed a good nickname that he could go by so he wouldn't get teased for it at school. My solution? Cyri (yeah yeah, quit your sniggering I'll get to that in a minute).

At the time we thought Cyri sounded pretty cute and a bit unusual, and of course there was still the full name to fall back on for more serious occasions. I was on board with it. We were ready to roll. I imagined my unborn Cyri being a really spirited and charismatic lad, maybe even a musician. Cyri and The Gang had a nice ring to it.

But then we started to think about how Cyri sounded a bit like Suri (the sourpuss-faced daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). Would people think we were trying to be cool like celebrities coming up with strange names for our children? Would our son be ridiculed for having a name that sounded a bit girlie? In the end it all had too many question marks around it and we opted for something entirely different altogether that we love and really suits our boy.

And thank F#@K for that! Because almost exactly a year after my son was born, Apple launched their latest and greatest app, Siri - the clever clogs cyber personal assistant for your phone (yes iPad too tech frothers).

Say whaaaaat? My husband and I couldn't believe the lucky escape we'd had. Our son was THIS close to having the same name as a popular technology device which existed to serve people. Imagine the teasing our poor boy would have had? "Get me that bag Cyri. Do my homework Cyri. What's the population of China Cyri?" And what about us as the parents? We would have had years of denying we were secret Apple worshippers with framed Steve Jobs photos around the house.

There would have been no other option but to immediately quit the Cyri and get back to the full name, Cyril (which again I stress is essentially a very nice name). But I didn't sign up for Cyril - I was only on the bus for Cyri, so there's a strong possibility that I would still be calling my son Cyri even now, in defiance that his name had come first and therefore Apple could go and get stuffed.

Well, maybe not. I don't think I could ever be that cruel to my son. One day when he's older though I'll tell him the story and he'll probably laugh and laugh, and then pause as it sinks in just how close he was to having a siri-ously crap name.

Did you almost call your child something utterly mental?

photo credit: Photo Giddy via photopin cc