You’d probably shocked to know that there was a time in my life where there was a lapse in my game playing. I call that phase of my life the dark ages, between the ages of 18 and 26, where I pretended to be responsible and grown up. Ironically, the event that brought the light of video games back into my life, was the darkest, most horrific job I ever had.

I was working in telemarketing, and in order to not gouge my eyes out from boredom between calls, I had to do something to entertain myself. Since this was the prehistoric era of no smart phones, I had to resort to the ancient text of magazines. Back then, instead of playing video games, I read about them, so in a Nintendo Power, and I was reading about this new game from Japan that was about catching, evolving and battling creatures called Pokemon.

I was hooked by the catching and collecting, but the most intriguing thing about the game was the evolution. When you battled with them enough, they got stronger and at some point, they would evolve. Same creature, same DNA, but their looks changed similar to a cute little child, into an awkward teenager, and then ultimately into a powerful, aging adult going through a mid-life crisis. It was always funny to me that in their middle evolution, they always look a little awkward, like their legs were a little too big for their bodies and they often looked like they had acne, and they hadn’t quite figured out their hairstyle.

The other thing that intrigued me was how they named each of the creatures. They always had some sort of name that related to what animal they were modeled after. For instance, one of the first Pokemon you could get was Charmander, who could evolve into a Charmeleon, and then Charizard. The Char in their name related to their relationship to fire, because the tips of their tales were on fire. The last part the “meleon”, “mander” and “izard” had to do with animals like chameleon, salamander, and Lizard.

Most of the names of the Pokemon have similar namology, or what the scholars call Onomastics. Some are overly obvious like Pidgey, which is a pigeon, or Beedrill, which is a bee that has drills for limbs. A lot of the Mythical or Legendary Pokemon were based on mythology or Japanese meanings, like Kyogre, which is Japanese for Sea King and a large monster from folklore. Jirachi, is tiny Pokemon shaped like a star and is Japanese for wish. Some of them are even clever puns, like Wynaut, which is supposed to sound like Why Not have this for a name since we couldn’t think of anything else?

The naming process for Pokemon was probably easy, because the creators knew beforehand what the creatures looked like, what attributes they had, and how they were related to the elements. As humans though, we don’t name everyone Human, so we have to name people based on feelings or because we had a family name that we wanted to name our creatures.

It’s a good thing we have 9 months to figure out what to name our creatures, because most of us are really bad at naming things. If I was put on the spot to name my child, I would probably think of a video game character, or look at something in the room, and just name it after that. It’s crazy that we have such a huge responsibility to name our kids a name that they will be stuck with forever, unless they become movie star.

There’s even more pressure because that name might determine what they someday become. There’s a theory called nominative determinism, which is a theory that a person might gravitate towards areas of work or interests related to their name. For example, a person named Justice Law might become a lawyer, just because their name seems to be guiding them to that kind of profession. Other funny examples, which I think are real, is a firefighter named Les McBurney. They make for funny memes, but some psychologists believe that names can lead you towards being a funny meme.

Does your name automagically predetermine the course of your life towards a certain profession? Or did your parent’s already know what you were going to be, and just name you accordingly? Are some parents particularly diabolical or just super clueless when their last name lends itself to easily mockable names? For example, if someone’s last name was Rod and their parents decided to name them Kurt Nigel Rod (where someone can call them Kurt N. Rod or Curtain Rod) are they doing that because they hate their kid, or because it was a family name? Or if someone’s last name was Butts and their parents really thought it would be okay to name them Seymour. (Thanks for that one, Simpsons.)

My legal name is Bitter Benjamin David LAST NAME REDACTED . Benjamin translates to “son of the right hand”, in Hebrew and Arabic, but since I go by Ben, it means “son of” and since my middle name is David, it literally means Bitter Son of David, which is my dad’s first name. I’m sure you could make some jokes about other things I’m the son of a, but my mom was actually pretty nice, so maybe don’t go there.

I’m not sure why my parents put the prefix Bitter on my gift certificate, but the theory might be that they had a vision of my Bitter empire and knew I would need it. Or maybe they just saw me with a bitter look on my face, and it was a spur of the moment thing. Was it the bitterness that created me, or was it me that created the bitterness?

I don’t know for sure how it happened, but I’m sure as the moon rose quietly over the Bitter Rock at the hospital, that stood high over the Bitter Valley below the hospital, my father held my tiny bitter body up over his head, and declared to the sickly humans below that this child would someday be the King of the Bitterness, while my Uncle Resentment sat lazily in the corner of the hospital room, jealous that he would not be the King of Bitterness someday. Then some sickly late night hospital residents broke into a song of coughs and an intern or two walked slowly to the song Circus of Life.

I’m not sure if I’m bitter because of the nominative determinism of my name or if I created my identity purely independently of my name, but I am sure that there are Bitter Friday Giftures that will break your boredom at work, similar to how Pokemon broke mine at work…

It was my telemarketing job…

Because the boredom lead me back…

It lead me to Pokemon…

And how kids evolved to teenagers…

It made me laugh…

But more importantly…

Their creators already knew who and what…

But as humans…

So we just have to guess…

Hoping that somehow their name fits…

And somehow…

Luckily my parents…

So I would always remember…

ARRRGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Nominative Determinism Ben