The D-Man

They'll tell you that I named my son after a vacuum.  But really, is it any worse than naming your kid after a car (Bentley, Mercedes), or a dead profession (Cooper, Tanner), or your Great Aunt Hilda (Hilda)?  At least I picked a good vacuum brand, right?

Alright, so lets set the record straight:

I did NOT name my child after a vacuum.













I did NOT name my child after a man who invented a vacuum.

I did NOT name my child after some crazy scientist who came up with some sort of energy hypothesis.

I did NOT name my child after a rugby player.

I did NOT name my child after a TV Werewolf.








So where did the name come from?  
You will notice above two examples of 'Dyson' as a last name and two examples of 'Dyson' as a first name.  It seems to be far more common as a last name and so uncommon as a first name that most people I know have never even heard of it before.

It is such an uncommon name that most baby naming websites (and trust me when I say I've visited ALL OF THEM) don't even have an entry for 'Dyson'.  The best you're going to find is that Dyson is an Old English name possibly meaning son of Dye, son of Dennis, or son of Dave.  Fitting I suppose, but the meaning of the name is not why we chose it.

The name, to me, is not uncommon at all - having known an Uncle Dyson all my life.  In fact, not only is my Father's Mother's brother named Dyson, my Father's Mother's Mother's brother was also a Dyson.  (That'd by my Great Uncle and Great Great Uncle for anyone trying to keep track).  So it's a family name.  That's still not really why we picked the name.

We had a significant amount of trouble picking a boy's name - which wasn't a really big deal since, right up until the end, we both thought we were going to be getting a girl!  However, I still insisted on having a name picked just in case.  We were looking for a name that wasn't overused, and uncommon but not unusual - no Moon-Units in our family!  So we had a list.  A rather long list; I think there were close to 40 possible boy names on it by the time we chose one.  And lets face reality here: I put all the names on the list, and one by one, Dave stroked them off because they were too boring, or normal, or he knew someone with that name who was a dingus, or he just didn't like it.  FINALLY, 'Dyson' was added to the list and it was picked because it was just the right amount of unique without being crazy.

As for the vacuum thing... We decided that we'll just teach Dyson to beat people up who make fun of his name.  :P