It’s Friday night. And being the charismatic, popular, fun loving good time that I am, naturally I was scrolling Twitter in bed. That’s when I came across a highlight from a MLB game. Nothing too crazy. Just a clip of a guy hitting a home run. But the name of this player caught my eye. Cam Smith. Cam. Smith. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. How can there possibly be another one?! What is going on here? How is everyone just acting like this is normal? There are simply too many Cams. We have a surplus of Cams in professional sports.
Don’t Believe Me?
Alright, well first off we have the aforementioned Cam Smith of the Houston Astros. Next, we have Cam Smith, a professional golfer and major championship winner. That’s just the same name. Y’all need to work that out. Then in pro golf you also have Cam Young. Moving over to basketball you have Cam Reddish, Cam Whitmore, and Cam Payne. This is already teetering on too many Cams for my liking.
Then there’s football. He’s retired now but there’s Cam Newton, who is probably the most notable Cam I can think of. Now there’s Cam Jordan, Cam Jurgens, Cam Sims, Cam Akers, Cam Hart, Cam Heyward, and Cam Taylor-Britt. Not enough for you? Okay, there’s two more that will be drafted into the NFL this year. Cam Ward and Cam Skattebo. This is absurd! This is absurd, right? I’m not going crazy here am I?
And that’s just the Cams that I could think of off the top of my head. I went to the Wikipedia page for famous Cams and there were more that I recognized. I left those out because you and I both have read the name Cam far too many times already, but there were so many more. Just go scroll through that list. It’s nuts!
Time for change
We have got to do something different. Look at this graph from Engaging Data. What the hell happened?! Why was there such a spike in the late 80s? Somebody is not telling me something. Or maybe I’m not the best researcher. Either way this is crazy. Surely you are on my side at this point. How could you not be?
I propose that there be a 10 year ban on naming children anything that can be shortened to Cam. That gives us roughly 25-30 years to get all of these current Cams out of their respective sports before the next crop of Cams come through. But how do we keep this from happening again? Wouldn’t there be another surplus of Cams in like 2055? Excellent questions. I also propose that there be a strict cap on the use of the name when it is reinstated. I’m not sure what that number will be, but I will continue to further my research and get back to you.
But what do we do right now?
Now this is a tough one. We’ve somehow gotten ourselves into this mess and we have too many Cams. Seriously guys, I can’t overstate this enough. I didn’t even include the people that go by Cameron. This blog could probably have been twice as long. We have got to do something.
Look, I’m not trying to be the ultimate authority on the name Cam. I don’t have all the answers. My goal is to bring awareness to this issue and get the conversation started. However, I would completely understand if you did want me to be the ultimate authority on the name Cam. I’d be great at it. So if you are going to twist my arm then fine.
As the ultimate authority on the name Cam I would require that there can only be one Cam and one Cameron per sport. Camerons may not be referred to as Cam at any time. Should there already be two Cams in one sport you may submit a nickname. If the nickname is approved you will be allowed to play. Once a nickname is given, you must only be referred to by said nickname. If no suitable nickname can be found, you must wait until one of the Cams leaves and a spot opens up. You can also legally change your name, but there will be a 1-year probationary period before you are permitted to play.
Help the cause
I am doing everything I can do. I need your help to get this movement the notoriety it deserves. We have to band together to make this stop. I will continue to fight the good fight over on Twitter, you can follow me as a show of support. I have also decided that I am going to get big into the WNBA this year, there should be far fewer Cams over there, I hope.
That was just a cheeky little plug for my Twitter account and a recent post I wrote. I hope you’ll check both of them out. If you are looking for a sales pitch, I would say that you will find more stuff from a guy who legitimately gets disgruntled over the surplus of Cams in professional sports and writes a blog about it at 1:00 in the morning. That should tell you pretty much everything you need to know. Thanks for taking the time to read about this significant world issue. And remember to tell a friend, to tell a friend, to stop naming their kids Cam!
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