[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
I, too, am against making up crazy spellings for the sake of crazy spellings. But I do understand why some parents name their children unusual names. Sometimes, the name has a deep meaning to the family, and they feel it is an honor to give it to the child. I was named Shatda for that reason. Pronounced Sha-hat-ta.
And you know, I hate to throw out cliches, but, I gotta say…getting teased does build character. It taught me to learn to speak up for myself, to articulate in front of a whole class, and a stubborn teacher that insisted the pronounciation was Shat-da; “It is pronounced Shatda. The S says ‘sh’ all by itself.”
Doing that kind of thing every school year really takes the shyness out of a kid.
[/QUOTE]
But do you really think that if your mom had named you Sharon, you wouldn’t have also learned to speak up for yourself or to speak in front of others? And since most other people have no idea what the deep meaning of your name is, and no idea that a seemingly two-syllable name should be pronounced with three syllables…come on, the “s” can’t say ‘sh’ all by itself when the ‘h’ is just standing there next to it, waiting to hook up as usual, them’s the rules!..it is very frustrating to deal with.
Sometimes I think that children who are named unusual things or given unusual spellings have such loyalty to their parents that even those they might despise their own name, they will never, ever admit it. Even if they tire of having to spell it over and over. They have to find other ways to take out their hostility!
I have the more unusual spelling of a very common diminutive of my name… Debby instead of Debbie. I don’t have problems with having to say “Debby-with-a-y” over and over because there is no way to know from hearing my name which way it is spelled. And it distinguished me from my friend Debbie-with-an-i-e. In fact, to this day, that is exactly how my friends refer to us when we are together. Add to that the fact that I spell it Debra and she spells it Deborah (which some people insist on pronouncing de-bore-uh just to be contrary, even though they have never in their life heard it pronounced that way…the difference between deb-ruh and debber-uh is so slight that we both consider it prounounced the same)
I got my spellings, in part, because my father was slightly dyslexic. When deciding between two common variations, they went with the spelling that he naturally used, so that he wouldn’t have to struggle with it. I don’t see the same consideration for other fathers at my work! In the other thread I related the tale of the father of a 13-year-old girl who had to refer to his notes to remember how his daughter’s name was spelled, because he and his wife spell it differently. That, to my mind, is sad. If you’ve picked a spelling that your loved ones can’t remember without notes, even after 13 years…that’s so sad.
Cutesy names can be very distracting when they don’t match the person. I worked with a girl named Caressa. I was constantly wondering to myself if her mom named her after Caresse soap…which was a product she didn’t seem familiar with (soap, not just the brand), and the disconnect between such a lovely name and the fact that this was a huge, hulking, graceless, smelly, incoherent lump of a girl who was not in your wildest imagination caressable.
And don’t get me started on naming children after products like cologne and cars and alcohol (Nautica, Lexus, Chardonnay, Cristal and the like are popular around here.) Though I did work with a girl named Quasar once…I kept hearing the trademark sound from the television brand in my head whenever I heard her name. She said her parents were hippies who named her while they were high…she continued the family tradition by doing coke in the bathroom at work, if the rumors are true. In her case, the name fit, though I think she worked hard to fit her name. She might have had a happier life as a plain old Karen.
And while we’re on the topic, what’s with the multiple middle names, and the first names that don’t get used? Poor Litoris thinks we’re picking on her, since her child’s name inspired all this, but her Aiden Caughner Niquolos (I think) first was called Caughner (pronounced Connor for all the newbies to the Thread, though I still hear Coffner in my head when I read it) and now has decided to use Niq as he goes into kindergarten. What about the Aiden part? Why even bother naming him something you never, ever use? Makes my job as an engraver harder, too, as friends try to figure out just what his initials are in 20 years when they want to get him a gift when he’s a groomsman! I had a friend in school whose first name was his dad’s first name, and he was called by his middle name to not confuse them. Let’s say his given name was Albert Ronald Davis, and he was always called Ron. Always. It was a huge shock to many of us when the senior yearbook came out and we found out a lot of people’s real names! He tried using A. Ronald Davis professionally, but finally decided to legally change his name to reflect the reality of his usage, so now he’s Ronald Albert Davis. Still honors his dad, but more accurately reflects the name he goes by.
