The Weird, the Bad, and the Ugly: Name Discussion - Merge

[Khan]

One of those baby girls named "Abcde" was born to a high school classmate of mine. She joins big sister Nevaeh. Why, oh, why do people let the kids name the baby? That's how I got cousin Magic and cousin Boy.

Edited because I understand birth order.

[crazyforkate]

Seriously, I know some insane people. Sigh. For yet another chip at whatever faith in humanity you have left, my mom once had a doctor whose last name was Crust (maybe Krust). His kids?

Cookie.

And Candy.

These were not nicknames.

I'm going to hide somewhere for a while.

[already hungover]

I'm convinced whatever your name is people will find a way to mess it up. My father is a junior. He and my grandfather have the simplest shortest English language name of anybody I've ever known but people still find a way to mess it up. I once damn near had a panic attack trying to visit my father at the hospital because the woman at the admissions desk kept telling me he wasn't there when I asked what room he was in. I started to think he had died until she admitted she wasn't entering his name into the computer like I asked her to. I verbally gave her his name then wrote it down but she kept trying to make it more complicated. It wasn't until I said some stuff that probably could've gotten me in trouble with security that she entered it correctly then her face turned red. She refused to talk to me but she wrote his room number on a piece of paper and I was finally able to see him.

One of my great-grandma's sons was a junior, but instead of giving him his father's full name, they named him Father'sFirstName Junior LastName. His middle name was Junior.

[loulou]

I worked with a woman once who had a friend named Ima June Bugg. Her parents thought it was cute. Yes, she hated it.

One of my cousins did our family tree back to the 1700s. We have an ancestor named Submit (she was 13th out of 13 kids). She had sisters named Patience and Chastity.

[Miggy]

Syriniti or whatever should be Serenity. Just another mom trying to make her average kid yuneek.

Thank you. Don't think I would have got to that one.

I don't know whether it applies anywhere else but where I live, names are directly related to income and therefore, often intelligence. Solicitors, accountants, financiers, doctors, etc. name their kids old fashioned names: Henry, William, Eliza, Hannah. These kids are usually pretty bright. Teachers, nurses, engineers, etc. give regular names: Sam, James, Angus, Kate, Fiona, etc. these kids are average or higher. From there down in our community, the names deteriorate and so does intelligence. The names in our schools special ed class are terrifying.

Now I know this is only my observation. No proof. No statistics. I do know that every year we all joke about how difficult a child is going to be based on the spelling of their name. I often wonder (a) how the parents would feel if they knew this and (b) whether there is a way I can warn parents about the judgements that can be made about a child based on their name?

[ShadowyOne]

Seriously, I know some insane people. Sigh. For yet another chip at whatever faith in humanity you have left, my mom once had a doctor whose last name was Crust (maybe Krust). His kids?

Cookie.

And Candy.

These were not nicknames.

I'm going to hide somewhere for a while.

I have a cousin with the last name "Mark." Before she was born, her parents joked - JOKED - about naming her things such as Water, Hall, Post, etc. Because they had a sense of humor, they made a joke. They actually named her a perfectly normal name with no puns involved.

[Miggy]

Similar story ... Friends of friends named Creek and through the pregnancy joking called the baby Two Mile. I am told that by the end they were so use to the sound of it they called the baby Tui. (Technically a Samoan name but it's pronounced Two-y.) I've always hoped this was just a story but my friends aren't the type to make up stories.

[longskirtlotsakids]

A new one yesterday.

Ah'nesty. Pronounced honesty. Teen mom.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

I asked my 11 y/o stepson today what the most popular girls' name was in his class, and he said they have 5 Jessicas! I'm very surprised, since that was the case when I was his age almost 20 years ago. Maybe it's having a revival again already?

[Bazile]

I'm convinced whatever your name is people will find a way to mess it up.

My oldest daughter's name is Isabelle. My husband and I debated Isabel versus Isabelle, but we never considered anything uneek. Both spellings are recognizable and perfectly normal in English. One of my grandmothers consistently addresses thing to her as Isabell. I know Isabella is much more common right now, but I don't get how someone holding a piece of paper with her name written on can mispronounce her name as Isabella instead of Isabelle. And two-thirds of the time when I take her to the doctor, they say Isabella. I have a very common first name that's been used for hundreds of years. While my maiden name is traditionally Jewish and I could understand people mispronouncing it, my married name is four letters with only one vowel that follows conventional English phonics. When we lived in Tucson people consistently mispronounced both my first and last name by pronouncing it like it was Spanish, and then would look shocked when the pasty white girl would stand up.

[Miggy]

In France, Isabelle with an acute over the last e is pronounced the same as Isabella. Maybe you mix with a lot of people trying to show off their knowledge of French. My Australian-born-French-parented school friend was driven mad explaining this to every single person she met.

[bluelady]

Whether people want to give their children traditional, trendy, or unique names I try not to be too judgmental but they do need to realize that their children need to live with these names. A few people in my family got stuck with passive aggressive names. My little sister has standard feminine version of our father's name. I was named after his mother so he wanted her named after his father. A few months after she was born a cousin of mine also had a daughter. She complained that she thought the name was pretty but felt she couldn't give it to her daughter so instead her daughter got a unique name that basically creatively spelled my sister's name and mashed it up with the name of a country. The country isn't even part of her heritage but my cousin likes to sigh a lot when claiming she couldn't give her daughter the name she never let anybody know she wanted to until my sister was born.

Something similar happened on my mom's side of the family. My grandfather named my mother after his favorite song. Years later my maternal grandma's little sister had a daughter and gave her a name similar to my mom's. Decades later she still likes to act like my grandmother stole the name nobody knew she loved so her poor daughter has to go through life knowing her mother named her out of bitterness and not love.

I don't understand the "ownership" of names. My cousin had a daughter and named her Sarah. A decade later, my sister had a daughter and, not even thinking of my cousin's daughter, named her child Sarah as well. There is no confusion. Based on the context of the conversation, we know whether someone is talking about 13 year old Sarah or 3 year old Sarah. And the older girl thinks it's fun that there is a little girl "named" after her. She loves hanging out with and playing with my niece when the two families have the opportunity to be together. We have a ton of pictures with "the Sarahs" together.

[Flossie]

I don't understand the "ownership" of names. My cousin had a daughter and named her Sarah. A decade later, my sister had a daughter and, not even thinking of my cousin's daughter, named her child Sarah as well. There is no confusion. Based on the context of the conversation, we know whether someone is talking about 13 year old Sarah or 3 year old Sarah. And the older girl thinks it's fun that there is a little girl "named" after her. She loves hanging out with and playing with my niece when the two families have the opportunity to be together. We have a ton of pictures with "the Sarahs" together.

My mom came from a wildly fertile family before the age of The Pill, so she expected to have a lot of kids. Anyway, my mom and one of her sisters both wanted the same name for their next girl. (The Pill actually came out the same year we were born, but by that time both sisters were already pregnant.) My mom 'won' and I got the coveted name. Even though she and her sister lived several states away from each other and didn't get to see each other much, my aunt didn't feel like she could give her new daughter The Name, so she gave my cousin a name that rhymes with mine.

As luck would have it, I only met my cousin a few times, and only one time that I was old enough to remember. We were about 16 and my cousin came with my aunt to visit. During the visit our moms were laughing about the competition for my name.

Cuz and I looked at each other and said at the same time:

Me: I like your name better.

Cuz: I got the better name.

[RachelB]

A friend was almost born in an elevator. Her parents joked about naming her after the elevator (Otis). They didn't, because they're compassionate people.

[OkToBeTakei]

A friend was almost born in an elevator. Her parents joked about naming her after the elevator (Otis). They didn't, because they're compassionate people.

I think Otis IS a pretty cool name though :lol:

[Pond]

This has been making its rounds on my twitter and Fb today. Former UK Apprentice star talks about the correct way of naming your babies. Make sure you choose intelligent names because only lower class parents name their kids Tyler! Can't have Esmee playing with a Tyler in case he throws a book across the room, can we? :naughty:

[PennySycamore]

I honestly did not know there was another way to spell Elyse. Unless it was kreative? Very pretty name. To me THAT is normal spelled. :lol:

Allyce. Allyce Beasley played Agnes de Pesto on the TV show Moonlighting.

[ILoveJellybeans]

The names shes complaining about are normal names that there is nothing at all wrong with. Yeah, its probably doing a disservice to your kid to name it something that looks like you randomly picked scrabble tiles from a bag, or choosing a name like Abcde or Tater Tot, or naming them a normal name spelled in a way that will have them explaining to everyone they meet "No, its Jinger with a J, not a G", but Tyler? Perfectly normal name, nothing wrong with that.

[lizziesmom]

So I guess we shouldn't expect a royal baby to be called Brandon Tyler or Kylie Charmaine?

[Pond]

Apparently according to her, Tylers, Kylies, Chaimaines and Brandons are not worthy of her kindness because they are "lower class names", and therefore not intelligent enough. This will no doubt lead to misbehavior due to the lack of intelligence. I fail to see the correlation : |

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

What an absolute fucking bitch. I couldn't even get through that.

[ladyamylynn]

Wait, she's not trying to imply that "Esme" is a classy name, is she?

[SpeakNow]

I named my dog Tyler...I guess that means he's low class?

[Mecca]

Wait, so this troll hates when parents name their kids after geographical locations, but she names her own child India? :think:

[OkToBeTakei]

She's a fanny.