The ridiculous demises of almost all the people who touch Grenouille's life ( Madame Gaillard, Grimal the tanner, Baldini, Druot, etc.) are meant to be funny, too, and in many cases the deaths are particularly apt. It is true that Jean-Baptiste was a common name at this time, but the irony of little Grenouille having to bear in his name his mother's shame for his entire life goes beyond situational, transient humor into the realm of cruelty, with the sins of one's mother constantly revisited on the son. Perfume is infused with such multi-leveled black humor. Only a darkly ironic person would baptize an infant whose mother had been decapitated with the name of Saint John the Baptist (who also was decapitated).
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