tony7531's Journal: Children Being Named After Vegas Hotels

Not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Often, the evidence of a wild Vegas night out is birthed into the world some nine months later. A growing number of these children are now being named after the Vegas hotels they were conceived in.

"Sometimes I think of our little sweetheart like a souvenir," says Debra Miller, mother of Madison "Treasure Island" Miller. "I brought home a few keychains and other items for my girlfriends, Brad brought home a mug, some other junk, and $4,000 worth of credit card debt, but we both hit the jackpot with our Treasure."

Of course, not all children conceived in Las Vegas are planned. According to a recent study, roughly 80 percent of pregnancies resulting from a Vegas adventure are happy surprises, while 60 percent of those surprises are the direct result of an affair or a one night stand. Circus Circus Brandeweis comments on what it's like to grow up with the evidence that you were an accident displayed in your name. "My sister Meredith and my brother are both over ten years older than me," says Circus. "It's always been clear that I wasn't exactly supposed to have been born. And the kids at school didn't really get it at first, they just thought my name was funny and made fun of me for that. Eventually that went away as everyone got used to it but when we got a little older they figured out that my parents had named me after their one night of passion in their golden years so the kids started giving me grief all over again. You don't really want kids teasing you all the time about your parents having sex. Imagining your parents naked and interlocking as they are having sex is not something you ever really want to think about.

Many of the children are like Treasure Miller, the start of a new family. Las Vegas is a popular honeymoon destination and these young newlyweds aren't going to Vegas to lose control and have an affair, they are simply there to enjoy themselves and, as is often the case, start a family. Some families will only conceive while in Vegas, believing it to be good luck, a lot of fun, or a combination of the two.

"I met a family yesterday with three kids, all Vegas babies," says Dennis Lopez, a doorman at Terrible's Casino. "There was the little girl Sahara and her two older brothers Excalibur and Bellagio. I just hope that if their folks are planning to make another one while they're out here, they'll figure out a better name than what our hotel has to offer."

One case concerns Wyett Davis and his wife Shawna. The couple went to Las Vegas together in May 2007 and decided to attend an orgy, as well as pursue an open relationship for the duration of their time in Vegas. When Shawna became pregnant with triplets, they decided to name the children Swinger, Who Knows and Why Not?, respectively.

The fact that so many Vegas babies are conceived during affairs has led to another interesting development in modern naming practices, in which the name of a child is based on the context of its conception. This happens very often in other places around the world where it is normal for a child to be named after the situation surrounding its birth. For example, if a woman is pregnant, but doesn't tell her family right away, the child might be named "Answer" as in the answer to the question, Is my daughter pregnant? Here in America, that style of naming has led to children such as Never Trust a Woman Johnson, the son of a man who was robbed of his testicles by cancer and therefore could not have conceived the child born nine months after his vacation to Vegas with his wife.

"With all these silly names popping up everywhere, we've had to allow more room for changing kid's names than we would like," says Paolo Nunez, an administrator at St. Augustine Children's Center, an orphanage with an inordinate amount of Vegas "babies." "We want to respect people's choices, but these parents are obviously being completely irresponsible and we need to pre-empt any further damage they could inflict on their children by naming them something stupid. It is a huge problem, and the solution doesn't lie here with us. Something needs to be done to stop people from drunkenly sleeping with strangers and then thinking it's hilarious to name their unwanted child after their night of enjoyment."

The trend of naming children after the hotel or circumstance they were born in has forced orphanages and civil services to rethink the rules allowing them judgment over a child's name.