The website Belly Ballot is built on the concept of picking five names and then letting your friends and coworkers vote on which of the names they like best, because there’s nothing quite like giving people who may not like you very much control over a surprisingly important decision in your child’s life.
The site, however, has stepped it up a notch to let the entire Internet vote on one woman’s child.
And why, precisely, did Natasha Hill agree to let total strangers name her child? Because she gets five grand out of the deal, and the names will be carefully selected by… uh… people who buy ads on Belly Ballot:
In the coming days, we will create Natasha’s Belly Ballot and prepare the open voting to commence on March 18th and continue through March 22nd. We will select a number of currently trending names, and names sponsored by our Advertisers, to be listed on the ballot. Anyone will be free to vote for 1 girl name and 1 boy name each (only 1 vote will count per person for each though). The girl and boy name with the most votes when the ballot concludes on March 22nd will be the name Natasha will name her baby!
They actually called this the “Belly Branding” contest, and this marks something like the eighth story I’ve spent an hour researching this month to make sure the Onion wasn’t pranking us all again. The future is getting uncomfortably close to being a bad satire of itself.
Here’s my question: What advertiser “sponsors” a name? First of all, name a kid Kleenex, and he or she is going to be a “Generic Face Tissue” brand loyalist for life. Secondly, there’s some science that says what you name a kid can have surprising effects on their personality later in life, and it’s hard to imagine discovering your mom sold your naming rights to total strangers for cash is going to do wonders for your overall outlook on life.
Look, let’s just give her the money, name the kid what the Internet yearns to name it, and never speak of this again. Especially when Chalupa Batman McGoatse knocks on the door to ask for money.