Naming My Teeth
When my son (I don’t remember which one of the two) got his first two teeth, I thought it would be fun to name them, which I did: Montague and the Chomper. No one else found this cute, so I abandoned the idea, but it left me with the gnawing notion that I should be naming my own teeth. Many a sleepless night over the past 3-7 years (again depending on the child) was spent with my tongue poking and prodding my teeth that weren’t covered by my night guard, thinking how much better their lives would be if they all had proper names.
As you can imagine, this is a pretty daunting task. I would need to come up with 32 different names and probably personalities for all of my beloved pearly whites. Would I ever really find the time to sit down and tackle this? Well, this is actually one the perks CEOs should be focusing on in their countless op-eds about the virtues of coming back to the office. When you’re bored while working from home, you can exercise or play video games or take a nap. When you’re bored in the office, you can name all of your teeth.
Now here I am in the office, naming all of my teeth and giving them personalities and backstories.
To make things easier for those of you following along at home, I will be using the Universal Tooth Designation System as advocated for by the American Dental Association to identify each tooth. The UTDS starts with your upper right back molar as number 1 and works across to your upper back left molar at 16. Then it drops down to your bottom back left molar as 17 and goes back around to the right to 32. Please refer to the included diagram that I found on Wikimedia Commons and has hopefully been appropriately embedded and cited.
1 - Upper right wisdom tooth
Prudence - She was a carefree spirit, but unfortunately she left a lot of heartache in her wake and sadly her life was ended early by a jealous lover.
(ED - I had my wisdom teeth removed senior year of college before I went off my parents’ insurance, so some of these might be a bit tragic.)
2 - Upper right second molar
Murph - A real no-nonsense type, who just wants to get the job done no matter the cost. Respected, but has trouble developing real friendships.
3 - Upper right first molar
Dutch - Got some sharp edges from the tough life he’s lived, but deep down there’s a heart of gold.
4 - Upper right second premolar
Franklin - Very unassuming type. Doesn’t like the spotlight, but is great one on one. Pretty good at close up magic.
5 - Upper right first premolar
Morton - Dreams of being an actuary, which is weird because there’s nothing really stopping him from becoming an actuary.
6 - Upper right canine
Martin - Very insecure despite having an important job. Asks people to call him “Wolf”, but no one does.
7 - Upper right lateral incisor
Freddie - Has a cosmetic issue that is imperceptible to the human eye and even he sometimes struggles to find it himself, but nonetheless he’s extremely self-conscious about it.
8 - Upper right central incisor
Roger - The main event. The face of the franchise. Always makes time for the fans, but who is he really?
9 - Upper left central incisor
Estelle - The other main event and face of the franchise. A lot of people think Estelle and Roger are dating, but I just decided that all of my teeth are siblings, so that would be gross and weird.
(ED - This is also why I haven’t given any of my teeth a last name because it’s Barlow in every case, which I guess sort of makes them my children, which feels unsettling. I haven’t really thought this through, so instead let’s say their last name is Bartooth and we’ll just avoid all the stranger implications.)
10 - Upper left lateral incisor
Janis - Oh my gosh, Janis is so much fun. You would love Janis.
11 - Upper left canine
Devlin - Bit of a hot dog. Always showing off. He can be a little difficult to deal with sometimes, but he is fun at parties.
12 - Upper left first premolar
Dave - Everyone’s chill friend from college that people remember fondly, but have no desire to see ever again.
13 - Upper left second premolar
Cedric - Fought in the wars and is pretty banged up. A good half of him is prosthetic, which publicly he claims to be very proud of, but privately causes him to deeply resent the government and question whether war is ever truly necessary.
14 - Upper left first molar
Beauregard - No one ever takes him seriously, but he is serious. Deadly serious.
15 - Upper left second molar
The Masher - Little is known about who he really is or where he comes from, but you know that when the Masher shows up, things are about to get real.
16 - Upper left wisdom tooth
Giorgio - Let’s just say he backed the wrong pony and got what was coming to him.
17 - Bottom left wisdom tooth
Ted - Avid outdoorsman who walked off into the woods and never returned. Some people say he’s still out there because his body was never recovered, but it seems unlikely.
18 - Bottom left second molar
Trixie - A coal miner’s daughter who was ground down by the system when all she wanted to do was spread her wings and fly. Figuratively. She doesn’t actually have wings. The wings are a metaphor for her love of dirty dancing. The style of dancing, not the movie, although she does also love the movie, but more for its progressive treatment of women’s agency and bodily autonomy and less for its actual dancing.
19 - Bottom left first molar
Stephen - Works hard and plays harder.
20 - Bottom left second premolar
French Fry - Definitely the class clown of the group. Gets in a lot of trouble with his antics.
21 - Bottom left first premolar
Burt - No one knows much about him. He mostly just keeps to himself.
22 - Bottom left canine
Sebastian - A bit undersized and maybe not as sharp as he could be, but does he let that get him down? No way!
23 - Bottom left lateral incisor
Kirby - The only tooth that identifies as non-binary. They were very worried about whether or not the community would accept their true identity, but they were welcomed with open arms and now they are living their truth and couldn’t be happier!
24 - Bottom left central incisor
Roy - Perennial second on the call sheet, but by no means less important. In the past ten years or so he’s become something of an underground sensation. In fact, people in the know usually talk about Roy before they talk about any other teeth.
25 - Bottom right central incisor
Claudia - Definitely the diva of the bunch. Honestly, she can be a bit much, but when she’s doing her thing there’s no one better.
26 - Bottom right lateral incisor
Curly - What a cut up! Definitely the funniest tooth by far.
27 - Bottom right canine
Augustus - The less said about him the better.
28 - Bottom right first premolar
Champ - Still finding himself. He’s started leading off his emails with “Salutationz” hoping it will catch on. He really just needs to focus more on himself and less about what people think of him.
29 - Bottom right second premolar
Elijah - Secretly writes erotic poetry under the pen name of T.H. Powers, which is pretty shocking if you know Elijah.
30 - Bottom right first molar
Grant - He’s fine.
31 - Bottom right second molar
Nash - Strongly resents that his name is a pun on gnash which is what he does every day and kind of made that his whole deal.
32 - Bottom right wisdom tooth
Marcus - A very absent minded type. He fell down an open elevator shaft… or was he pushed??? No, he just wasn’t paying attention and fell.
Well, there you have it. The whole gang. I hope this inspires more companies to go back into the office so more people have time to name their teeth as well.