“IT STRIKES” Again: Shania Twain’s ‘Eja’ and other swell names for babies

[This column was first published in January, 2003. It was inspired by Brittaneigh, someone I never heard back from, and Kry-stalle, a student of mine in the 1980s. You got it... Kry-stalle with a K and hyphen. Simple enough to remember, right? gah]

Shania Twain’s ‘Eja’ and other swell names for babies

The conversation was going swimmingly with the receptionist at a business in Wortley Village until she handed me her card.

She instructed, “Just tuck this in with sample illustrations and my boss will get back to you within a week.”

A red light should have flashed in my brain when I glanced at her name, but it didn’t, so I asked innocently, “Do you have a Scottish background?”

“No. Why?”

A red light started to blink but - too late.

“Well, your first name has a Scottish flavour,” I offered.

“No one in my family is Scottish. My parents just wanted my name to be distinctive I guess,” replied Brittaneigh with an impatient grin.

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

“No problem. I get a bit of that.”

As I continued my stroll to The Red Roaster for morning coffee I put “Brittaneigh” under the heading of “Children’s Names that Parents Get Excited About - But the Kids, Maybe Not” just a few lines above “Eja”.

Shania Twain and Mutt Lange became parents recently, and they selected the distinctive name “Eja” for their bundle of joy and soggy diapers. I read that the name has an eastern connection or meaning.

I’m not sure where Mutt is from but if you go east far enough I’m sure you’ll get there. Shania is from Timmins, only east of here if you turn your Ontario road map on a 90 degree angle or you start your trip to her home from Thunder Bay.

Perhaps they came upon the name while living in their castle in the eastern country of Switzerland, thinking the wee boy would relate well to his fellow pre-schoolers down the steep road, around the lake and over the mountain in Zurich.

Perhaps they discovered the name in”The New and Improved Book of Swell Names for Babies” that claims 4,000 new entries (“Never used before and who can blame you!”), 3,000 up-dated spellings (“Can you spell Kry-stalle?”) and a brand new category - “So, You Don’t Want to Use a Vowel.”


["Don't wait up, Mutt and Eja!": CP Photo/Adrian Wyld. photo link]

Whatever the case, I was well prepared to raise my toque to Shania when she appeared bare-handed to sing at half-time on a very chilly day at the most recent grey Cup football game. Not only was she tough but she sported a red and white Canada toque, bulky yellow ski-jacket (sans corporate logo) and black medium-weight running tights just like my fellow-runners and I wear when we’re out on the trails and side roads (though we don’t dance around like Shania except during warm ups).

Good fashion sense, I said to myself. Shania seemed right at home with the Canadian winter scene.

But her sense for names seems a little too far away from home.

Shania and Mutt, I could be wrong here, but I think Eja is “gonna getchya good” one day with tough questions about the meaning of his name and how it could possibly relate to his immediate family and surroundings.

He may wonder why the other kids in Timmins have names like Robert or Jeff, and kids at the Swiss day-care have names like Hans or Johann. Not necessarily distinctive but with meanings that tend to suggest they live around there.

I’m sure I protest too much. After all, Eja has a perfect out.

If he is ever questioned about his name, he just has to show his little friends a picture of his mom at the Grey Cup game and say his dad’s name is Mutt.

His pals Tifphan’ny and Salymandur will proclaim, “Welcome to the club, Eja!”

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