Nicolas Cage, big-time Superman fan, has tagged his brand new baby boy with the name Kal-El Coppola Cage. “Kal-El” is of course Superman’s real name and means, in Kryptonian, “He who will get beaten up in school, a lot.”
Not that I have a problem with Cage and his super-homage. It makes as much sense as any other way to name your child — I favor pulling out random Alpha-Bits, myself — and it honors someone, albeit fictional, who clearly has made a great impact on the Oscar-winning actor.
But, please, someone, think of the children.
Years from now when K.C. “Call me Kale” Cage gets picked up for felonious assault, again, it may not be possible to trace it back to this moment, but I won’t be surprised in the least. What would you expect after a constant onslaught of “What’s up, Superdweeb?,” “It’s a nerd! It’s so lame! It’s Stuporman!,” and similar biting wit. And that’ll be from his teachers.
Admittedly the temptation to break from the ordinary in the choosing of your offspring’s moniker is a powerful one. My wife and I named our oldest son Tony. Not Anthony, mind you that sounded too whiny. Instead we went with Tony and thus we doomed him to a lifetime of informality. But had I known then that comics were fair game (and if my wife had been sedated) he’d be signing his checks Opus, Woodstock, or Hobbes.
Besides, there are worse names out there.
Cage could have named his child after an inanimate object, like Satchel (both Woody Allen and Spike Lee), Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin), Banjo (Patrick and Rachel Griffiths) or even Brooklyn (David and Victoria Beckham). Or a concept, like Sonny and Cher’s daughter Chastity and Erykah Badu’s kid Seven.
Cage might have gone for the merely odd. Stephen Baldwin named his daughter Alaia, a hauntingly beautiful name that ensures she will never, ever get correctly spelled mail. Madonna and Guy Ritchie chose Rocco to proudly signal their son’s inevitable porn star career while Penn Jillette chose his daughter’s future vocation with Moxie Crimefighter. Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence’s daughter Tiger Lily Heavenly Hirani sounds like something you’d order at a nice restaurant, possibly with eggroll. And Jason Lee named his child Pilot Inspektor for some reason known only to himself and his God.
Giddy from exhaustion and post-natal medication, the Cages could have made the common celebrity mistake of using the “Name Your Pet” book. Julia and Jamie Oliver have Daisy Boo, Courtney Cox and David Arquette created Coco, and Paula Yates and Bob Geldof whelped both Fifi Trixibelle and Peaches. No charges have been filed to date.
Sadly, these playful, lifelong cruelties often travel in packs. The late great Frank Zappa and his wife Gail probably hold the record for child-warping names with Dweezil and Moon Unit, but in that family such names made perfect sense. Director Robert Rodriquez produced Racer, Rebel, and Rocket. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore cranked out Scout, Rumer, and Tallulah. Forrest Whitaker is responsible for Ocean, True and Sonnet, which suggests he wasn’t using a baby name book so much as sticking his finger into a dictionary.
In my darkest times I wonder if celebrities do this to their children out of a sincere desire to give them something magical and make them forever different from the mundane world, or if it’s just a quick way to get in the headlines for a few days. Maybe it’s to ensure the child will be creative and artistic by guaranteeing plenty of schoolyard abuse for later use as traumatic inspiration. Maybe they couldn’t get the vanity license plate they wanted and this was the next best thing. Maybe it’s the drugs.
But what really worries me is that celebrities tend to try and one-up each other, which means this will escalate. In 20 years you’ll be afraid to walk the streets for fear of being attacked by permanently disgruntled people named Dishrag Barrymore, Google Sue Potato Salad Clooney, Vote Democrat Baldwin, or Gedavidityjaxencomp Pitt. Gangs of celebrity offspring will band together and wreak their horrible vengeance on the world and we will tremble in fear at their totally justified havoc.
But when things are at their darkest, never fear.
Kal-El will save us.
I read that he was quite keen do a Home and Away cameo! lmao. Sounds a bit dodgy to me. There’s a part of me that kind of wishes this is not true lol.