We took the kids to the Enterprise Rodeo last night, a 3-night, old school, amateur rodeo held in the tiny farm town of Enterprise, Utah [pop. 1,200 or 1,700 or so]. It was packed, and awesome, and it's completely turned me off of professional rodeo for good.
They didn't have mutton bustin', but they did have bullriding. At least they tried to. While PBR is like mainlining adrenalin, amateur bullriding is the most boring event of the evening. There was only one successful ride out of maybe 15 attempts last night; the most interesting thing was the bulls chasing the horses afterward, or the one bull who full-on sat down and refused to be dragged out of the arena.
More interesting were the tons of kids/junior events, and we only realized halfway through that when the kids from all the families around us in the bleachers wandered off, it was just as likely to be to compete as to get a snack.
K2 also did her first chicken chasing, where they line up all the kids under 6 in the center of the arena, then let loose a couple dozen chickens. And the kids chase'em down and catch them. It was as hilarious as you could imagine, right down to the disappointment on our city kid's face when some 4-yo farmer snagged the chicken right in front of her. He let her pet it, though, which was nice.
Not that the rodeo didn't have its issues. There are pretty solid gender gaps, as you could imagine. Which, whatever, I guess, it's not like the English riding world is a gender stereotype-free paradise. It's just interesting to see. After the all-girl color guard did their elaborately choreographed flag procession, accompanied by someone's homemade patriotic country music mixtape, the rodeo royalty was introduced. The rodeo equivalent of the beauty pageant wave, elbow-elbow-wrist-wrist, is to come galloping into and around the arena at full speed, leaning into your horse, with your right arm extended in a stiff wave/salute, your blonde hair flying behind you.
Which isn't the point. The point is names. Here are the top names of junior contestants in the Enterprise Rodeo, in no particular order:
Ryler
Kanton
Tel
Buba
Tyrel
Kelby
Dakota
Ramzi
Chance
Aly*
Shaunelle
Carli Jo
Lashel
Shawnee
Cailee
Laremi
Cody
Ram [seriously]
Daisy*
Dalton
Macardi
Tanzee
Brek
Liberty
Trinity*
Kodi
* Rodeo Royalty
damn, lds rednecks be crazi!
d'oh, crazi is their middle name. also, forgot to add the mormon tag
Wow. There is not one name on this list that I would consider naming a child. In fact, I'm not sure there's one name on this list that's even a NAME. This is bad.
Tanzee? Ramzi? Really?
Not sure I like the spirit of this post or the comments. The name that gets a [seriously] tag happens to be shared by the mayor of Chicago and former president's chief of staff... is it really a bad name? I think it's pretty cool, with an unfortunately masculine/aggressive meaning to it.
I agree that there are some interesting names and even some discordant-sounding ones here, but I like almost all of these better than another Joe, John, or Jennifer.
Who said it was bad? Not me, just the opposite, I thought it was awesome, and it was one of the ones that pushed me over the line about making the post in the first place. What I didn't include were the endless spelling variations on more typical names, the liberal sprinkling of y's and z's. Personally, I'd name a hundred kids Ram before I named one Aidyn/Kaydin/Joiaiydahn.
I'm LDS, and couldn't be more city if I wanted to, but I wouldn't hesitate to agree with jdg that these folks are rednecks. BECAUSE IT'S A SMALL-TOWN AMATEUR RODEO, HELLO. This was no RL Gang poseur westernwear convention.
Which is exactly the point. I throw these out there so folks can get a sense for what other people are naming their kids, whether they're making their own lists or not.
"Ram" is very different from Chicago mayor "Rahm." Rahm has an Israeli father and the spelling clearly indicates it's a Hebrew name. Not sure we can say the same here... maybe this Ram was given a biblical name, or maybe he was named for a truck or a sheep.
Name list aside, it's hard to get purer authenticity than a small-town amateur rodeo.
When was the last time you did something so devoid of self-consciousness or irony?
(while sober)
Back to the name list, there are a bunch of typical small western town names in there, mixed with some "let's do a mohdyrnn take on a klasyk", mixed with some WTF. Also, my wife's name is on that list (but in the first category).
Out of curiosity, was it really "Buba" ("boo-bah?") or the more common Bubba?
I'm betting (hoping) some of these are nicknames or shortenings rather than what's on the birth cert.