When I read the subject, I thought someone had named their kid “I don’t get this???”
“George” is a perfectly good name, but I think George Foreman took it a little too far when he named his five sons George Foreman Jr., George Foreman III, George Foreman IV, George Foreman V, and George Foreman VI.
If my name was Richard, I wouldn’t mind being nicknamed “Unit.”
So, Flamsterette_X, does this book just list names from the census? Maybe those cross-gender names are included because a few (one out of one hundred thousand) babies have been named that way. Nah, there couldn’t possibly be 2,500 boys named “Katelin-Bradley.”
I don’t know what is worse - giving a kid a bizarre name or giving a kid the most popular name of the day. My daughter has more friends named Jessica that we instituted the “Jessica Rule” - she could only have friends with that name. That way, we didn’t hafta remember different names.
When we were in the name-choosing process, we went out of our way to choose names that were meaningful to us, but wouldn’t cause strife or embarrassment for our children. We actually considered how the names we chose might be corrupted by taunting peers.
And parents need to realize that a name is something that needs to work for the person as an adult. Sakura and I were killing ourselves over the name Precious Angel. Can you image a paunchy man in his early 50s, with graying hair, closing the deal on an international merger?
“Let’s shake on it, Frank.”
“Okie dokie, Pwecious Angel! Ooooh, who’s the cutie, Pwecious Angel.”
At the risk of being way too reasonable here, might I suggest that “Newborn”, “Stillborn” and “Infant” may have been stand-in names written on the birth certificates of children who were actually stillborn?
Beverly and Leslie (though possibly with “ey” rather than “ie”) were still common men’s names when my mom moved to Canada. Shannon and Jody are common for boys as well.
I have an “unusual” name. As do some of my friends: Sunshine, Rio, Zoltan, Justice, Carroway and Sunflower (last name Seed). Were we traumatized as kids? No. Did we get teased a bit? Sometimes. Did any of us change our names as adults or use our middle names or any other alternatives? Absolutely NOT.
Especially now that we’re adults, we carry our names with a bit more pride and distinction than most because we are not “just another Jennifer, just another Patrick.”
My kid-naming philosophy is to choose one weird, unique name, and pair it with a more normal name. That way, they at least have an option of using the normal one if they prefer.
Thus, I have Tanner Fox* and Olivia Sage. (We call them Tanner and Sage, or collectively, “the babies.”) After reading this thread, I feel pretty run-of-the-mill.
[sub]*Although, had Tanner been a girl, he would have been named Echo. :eek: [/sub]
I used to know a guy called North. He was from the South of England although the rest of us in that group were from the North. He was also a bit of a jerk. One time he picked up £200 for answering the tie-breaker in a pub quiz and when he got back to the table he insisted that somebody else buy the next round.
Certain high-profile media types have a reputation for giving their kids weird names - Bob Geldof and Paula Yates for instance on this side of the pond. Or maybe we just get to hear more about them?
It’s also true that names do switch gender over time - Evelyn, Hillary, Ashley etc. used to be boys’ names but aren’t any more. Apparently Shirley Temple was the first girl called that (no cite I’m afraid) and there used to be a professional wrestler over here whose real name was Shirley Crabtree (ring name Big Daddy).
This is what I was thinking when I saw those. Also, it wasn’t clear to me from the OP that these came from census data versus just suggestions from some nuts who wrote a book. If this comes from census data then some of the cross-over names could easily be people mis-coding the form. And some of the strange names could be people with a weird sense of humor making a joke.
What’s the most unusual name any of us has actually encountered, in person?
I’d kill to have the name “Zork”.
My dad used to live in a very rural part of Louisiana (that is, even more rural than the rest of Louisiana.) The local paper there would print kids letters to Santa Claus, as written, which was pretty funny. However, for my dad and my sister, the humr always came from making fun of the kids’ names. Most of the kids were black, and my dad and sister would howl with laughter at names like D’Shawn.
This used to annoy the crap out of me, and not just because it embarassed me that I shared DNA with these people. But the main thing was, sure, LaRhonda’s name is unusual, but at least she can feel special that she has a name very few other people have.
In contrast, I was in a calculus class where the other three guys sitting in my row were ALL named “Matt”. And in third grade I had to go by “Davy” because there were two other Davids in this small class and I drew the short straw of Davy.
Mike and Jenny might be good and normal and non-eyebrow-raising, but they’re also dull as dishwater. May as well name your kid “Person” or “Human”. Yawn.
I’m not saying “Cash Money” is a good name, heavens no. I’m just saying I wish names were somewhat unique. Americans seem to think we should only use twenty names per generation.
I will take old editions of the Webster’s dictionary and slap a sticker on them. The sticker will read: BNB Book o’ Gender-free Names.
then some hapless parent to be will buy it and name their kid something like:
a·or·ta Pronunciation Key (-ôrt)
n. pl. a·or·tas or a·or·tae (-t)
The main trunk of the systemic arteries, carrying blood from the left side of the heart to the arteries of all limbs and organs except the lungs.
A couple of those also struck me as errors that occurred with the registry. Example: “Stephanie” as a boy’s name could have been intended as “Stephane”. My mother’s middle name was changed when her birth was recorded by “the officials”. It was Rosa vs. Rosita. I also know an Andres whose name was registered as Andrea.
I also know of a couple who let their kids name themselves when they were old enough (until then they were registered “Baby Jones” or “Female Infant Jones” etc.) The logistics of this puzzles me – neither kid chose a name until they were about 8. Have no idea what they called the kids until then, but the kids are thrilled with their names.
Note: I do know a woman named Ryan. Has no problem with her name other than getting junk mail or work related mail addressed to “Mr.” But then, I don’t think my name sounds particularly masculine, but I get mail addressed to “Mr.” too.
I think my buddy, Zoltan, has got one of my favourite names. IIRC, his parents created it by mixing two different names, from their two different ethnic heritages together. His dad thought it was especialy cool that it sounds like it could be the name of a cartoon bad guy: “I am Zoltan! Dark overlord of the planet Baltar! You will be destroyed…”
I’m sure I’ve mentioned a couple of my coworkers: One birthed Star and Sparkle, the other squeezed out Stormie and Summer (last name Winters). All girls, at least.
(And I distinctly recall that when GM started marketing the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera in the 80s, they announced that “Ciera” was a made-up name - sorry, no cite.
Christ-almighty, what was your brother thinking? Does he think? Ever?)
