We had a regular in the library who was named Notorious. She was a young teenager at the time, so I imagine her parents were fans of the Notorious B.I.G. when they named her.
One of my relatives works in financial aid and had a client with L-a within the past four or five years. It’s apparently uncommon but exists.
One of my cousin’s kids is named Braxton. His mama had Braxton-Hicks contractions when she was pregnant and liked the sound of it. They actually are hicks, too.
Braxton doesn’t strike me as a terribly odd name. The medical term is named after the physician who first described them, and using surnames as first names is a time-honored practice.
When I was in elementary school, we had 3 kids with the following names:
Dusty Rhodes (yep, his parents thought it was clever)
Tommy Storms
Renee Rains
Those last two weren’t special in and of themselves, but being the elementary-school-age turds that we were, it didn’t take us long to come up with, “Tommy Storms, but Renee Rains.”
Years ago–in the age of phone books–I was looking up a friend whose last name was Yu, only to find a “Fuk Yu” living on East 15th Street.
Now, true, that could have been a “performance artist name,” this being New York. But can you imagine his day to day life, as he thinks he hears people calling to him on the street all the time? Trying to meet girls in bars? “Hi, there, what’s your name?” “Fuk Yu, Miss!” [slap]
Had a teacher in HS who named his kids Summer (girl) and Winter (boy)- seriously, his name was Winter Sean (totally average American last name here).
Twins went to my HS named Jingle & Jolly.
Attended HS with a girl named Charity Muff. Really. Parents were well-educated, nice people (dad was an MD, in fact)- no idea WTH they were thinking.
If she went to school in central Illinois in the early 1900’s, it’s quite possible. Except the last name didn’t have d’s in it, but three t’s. My grandmother said she went to school with her.
Or perhaps there was more than one.
I went to middle school with a Summer Fields.
Regarding first-hand sightings of L-a: I suppose someone could have heard the urban legends and entirely missed the point of it. I mean, if you’re dumb enough to think L-a is a good name, you might not get that you’re supposed to laugh at the kid in the story.
I find the birth announcements in the newspaper strangely fascinating. I’ve noticed the name Paisley (and the variants Paisleigh, Paislie, and Paislee) showing up more often than I’d care to see. I think there were three in the list today. This isn’t a huge city either.
No clue as to the gender of these kids. Who names their kid after a fabric pattern?
“Hi, I’m Paisley, this is my brother Plaid, and this is my sister Polka-Dot!”
Today’s list had a name that made me laugh out loud. Trinitystarr. I wish I was kidding. That kid’s gonna grow up to be a stripper for sure… :eek:
My wife has worked in childcare for many years. She has run into one child named Shithead, pronounced shi-THEED, and another named Lemongelo, le-MAAN-jello, because his mom really liked lemon jello.
Incidentally, the Shithead my wife met was not Indian, his mother just liked the name.
Which do not occur in this thread. But I think the rest of your point still holds up.
If parents can name their kids Paris, or Sydney after towns, I don’t see such a big leap to Paisley… 
(The fabric pattern is named after the Scottish town where it originated.)
I used to work with a brother and sister pair named Buster and Cherry. They had a (younger, I think) sister named Dulce…which, in Spanish, means “sweet”.
Makes a good story, but it didn’t happen. Read snopes
I used to work in the kids’ department of a store. There was this family that would come through every month or so, and they were from some part of Africa. They had a son and a daughter, the son was 3 or 4 and extremely bratty, and when he’d act up the mother would shout at him.
His name?
Wedgie (I don’t know how they spelled it, but that’s what it sounded like.)
So the mother would be shouting “WEDGIE! WEDGIE! WEDGIE!!!” across the whole sales floor the whole while they were shopping. It was so hard not to laugh.
“WEDGIE! WEDGIE! WEDGIE!”
ETA I also waited on a woman one time whose last name was Wench.
Yes, but if they spell it Payslee, the kid’s gonna wind up buried in the back yard and the parents being talked about by Bill Kurtis on American Justice, with all the Baylees, Caylees and Haylees.
Were they Catholic, or did the parents just happen to like the adjective and had no idea of the existence of the name’s full form (Dulce Nombre de María, Sweet Name of Mary)?
Again, it’s always “a relative/friend once met this person who…” Are there any *first-hand *accounts of the name existing? If not, then sorry, it’s still an urban legend.