Irksome names for children

In My Humble Opinion
161

I’m a Sarah. I bet your daughter and I went to school together because there were FIVE THOUSAND SARAHS at my school. And we only had 850 students. :smiley: Let me guess, she’s about 20, right? Yup. That’s what I thought. The Sarah explosion of the early 1980s.

I probably won’t have kids for another 10 years, but right now I also like the name Grace…although if I find everyone else likes it too, scratch that idea. I also like Joy. And I want to work my mother’s name (Christina) in there somewhere. My last name is a boy’s first name - Anthony (uh-oh, you know my name!) - so if I have a boy, that’s him. Are those classic or dated?

162

I’m not suggesting you made it up, but as I’ve never come across it here in Ireland nor can I locate it in any of my references, I am doubtful as to whether it is actually an Irish name. There are a lot of names that people think are Irish, but aren’t in fact.

And in the Irish language a word spelled “rein” would be a one-syllable word rhyming (more or less) with “hen”.

163

Not quite - she’s 17… 18 in Sept. And had she been a boy, she’d have been named Peter.

164

In my class (born 1978), there were a number of Lisas, Sarahs, and Jennifers, and a few Melissas. For the boys - a few Marks, and a lot of Jeffs. As I recall, I was the only Ann until high school. I think my name is a little boring (Ann Elizabeth – it always felt like 2 middle names!). I was almost called after my great-grandmother, Lora – but she didn’t like having to spell her name and wanted my mom to spell it “Laura.” I would have loved either of those! My mom’s family has a sort of tradition that I like: give a child a “fancy” name and a “regular” name. That gives the child more options when they’re older. My grandmother is Virginia Mae, my mom is Ann Denise (but she’s always, always gone by Denise), my aunt is Janis Lynn, my cousin is Johanna Mara, etc. I think that’s a sensible way of naming children.

When the time comes for us to have kids, we’ll probably name a daughter Ella Catherine (or Katherine – we have time to decide) and a boy Thomas Aaron (after both of our maternal grandfathers). I think they’re both classic and easy enough to spell and pronounce, and neither has (at this point, anyway) a lot of baggage attached.

One of my pet peeves when it comes to naming children is giving kids nicknames instead of the full name. Children named Kate instead of Katherine, Mindy instead of Melinda, Chris instead of Christopher, etc. Is the full name really so bad? What if your daughter is a Kathy and not a Kate? I was “Annie” until 3rd grade, but I wouldn’t really have felt like I had a choice if Annie were my given name.

(My other naming pet peeve is giving girls cutesy names. If she becomes an executive or something, wants to be taken seriously, is she going to want “Brandi” on her business card? No. )

165

When I named my son Dylan I didn’t know of anyone else with that name except the Welsh poet and the rock singer (who named himself). Three Dylans in maternity ward.

He had a friend named Kate-lynn who went pretty much all the way through school with him. Spelled just as I wrote it, and constantly misspelled as Caitlin. Like all the other Caitlins, and there were many.

I wanted to name my 3rd son Dashiell (after Hammet), because I think it’s a great name and nobody else had it. Bet they would’ve if I’d actually used it. His other parent objected and we already had a D, so I named him Sam. Three Sams in his current class. Were there really that many Sams born in 1995, or did they just all end up in his class?

PS–Dylan thinks all with his name under age 21–his age–are usurpers. But he likes the name.

166

Even worse… Margie. After Harry Truman’s nickname for his daughter Margaret. At least they should have given me the full name.:rolleyes:

167

Heard of a mother who named her son Ian. When they moved to NY, other women wanted to know why she’d given her son a girl’s name – they pronounced the name Ann as EE-Ann.

168

Okay, so how many kids were in the 3rd grade with me? about 40
And how many were girls? lets say half
And of these 20 girls, how many were named Jennifer? 8!
And of these 8, how many were Jennifer Lynn(e)'s? 7! (One was Jennifer Leigh - like that’s different)
And in college I ended up with another Jennifer Lynn(e) for a roommate! Although we were the perfect guy hunting duo! I mean what guy can forget Jen & Jenny.

I asked my mom once how I got my name and she said, “Your father was outside and the nurse really wanted to know. It was the first thing I thought of.” Luckily, my mom left the “e” off of Lynne so I have a male middle name. Hey! It’s something!

And just for the record, I love the name Vivianne (Viv-E-Anne not Viv-E-In).

169

Sorcha is sort of Zor-ucca. But not quite.
Not to be confused with “Freedoms” or “Georges” (only ruadh is going to get this…)

All the Caitlin/Kate-lyn/Cathleen reminds me of a friend who did Camp America one summer (everyone I know who did that ended up HATING Americans, whatever you are doing to your kids, stop it…joke).
She had two brothers, Shaun (SHAWN) and Sean (SEE-ANN) in her care.
D’Oh!

170

My wife and I decided, after much torment, to bestow a name upon our daughter which would imply a certain amount of 1940-ish toughness, with a whiff of sexiness. We settled upon Charley. In case she receives infinite grief a run-of-the-mill middle name, Anne can be used.

171

Ohh, ya. But Margie is a good name, doncha know?

(My first kayak and my Jeep pickup were named Margie. Marge Gunderson’s a personal hero.)

172

This is all reminding me of my freshman dorm floor …

Very small college (about 2500). TWELVE rooms on our floor - about 20 girls. And we had: Kristie, Krista, Kristin, Kristen, and Christina. w00t!!

173

i once knew a girl named isadora belle. bleghk!

also met a girl named acquanet. pronounced aqua-net, like the hairspray. unless this is some sort of family name or something, i cannot imagine someone thinking to themself, gee i think i’ll name my daughter acquanet. they had to know. they had to know she was going to live a sad life of hairspray jokes. cruel, cruel world!

174

I’m 33 years old. My name is Meaghan (pronounced Mee-gan)
My 23 year old sister is Brianne.
My 35 year old sister is Tanya.

Whenever anyone calls out to any one of us, they are answered by a chorus of 6 year olds.

I think my parents were a bit ahead of their time.

(in their defense, Tanya and I were allowed to name the baby, and we came up with “Brianne”, after an actress we saw on “Battle of the Network Stars.” She hates it, and goes by “Brie.”)

175

Strangest names I’ve run into include:

September
Candy
(both for girls)

I guess “Candy” is supposed to be short for “Candida”, though you can imagine the insults at high school.

I’ve never run into anyone called September before, however I may just be living in a isolated bubble.

This thread reminds of a Seinfeld episode. Didn’t someone want to name their kid “seven” on an episode?

176

I was just reminded of a name! Perhaps the most bizarre incident in the history of naming. Check this article out:

Talk about character’s names - people seem to have problems by just choosing a name for their child.

BRFXXCCXXMNPCKCCCC111Mmnprxv1mnckssqlbb11116. No, this is not a misspelling of some kind. I’ve checked it out several times. It should be a correct spelling of a name. How it is pronounced? Well, according to the parents who came up with the above-mentioned name: Albin. They have fought hard against Swedish authorities to be able to give their son this hard-spelled name, but they didn’t succeed anyway. Instead they had to be fined $753.

Generic names don’t seem so bad in comparision

177

I work with a very nice chap named Lex. As in, that’s his official name, named I understand for someone who was always called Lex (though his full name was Alexander). Me, I think it’s cool. I guess YMMV. :slight_smile:

My little lad’s first name is Alexander (for my maternal grandfather), who’s given names were Alexander John, though he was called Jack his entire life. I have a cousin who named his son Jack after the same gentleman… a slight variation on the nickname theme. :slight_smile:

178

I’m a Matthew. Very normal and no one ever misspells it. I like it just fine and plan to name my kids more standard names too like Henry and David. No one will ever think me and my wife to be pretentious:D

179

They should be fined! They could have done something creative with MANY fewer letters that would have been equally incomprehensible.

I know a Twist. It’s her real name. Mystery writer, formerly a lawyer.

180

I’m a Rachel. And I hate it. Hatehatehate it. I can’t blame my mom, because I was her first child, and she didn’t know what the naming trends were at the time. She just liked the name. Technically, I’m named after my Great-Grandma (Rhea [they pronounced it Ray-uh]), my grandma (Roselind Elizabeth–my middle name is Elizabeth), and my uncle (Raymond). I still hate my name.

It wasn’t so bad in elementary school–for some reason, I was the only Rachel in my grade. This made life fairly easy. For whatever reason, though, no one could ever spell my name right. It was always “Rachael” or “Racheal” or whatever the alternate spelling that I don’t use is.

Then, I went to middle school. There was one other Rachel. She spelled it differently. This was the one time in my life when my name was always spelled correctly.

Then I went to high school. There were quite a few other Rachels, most notably one that shared many classes with me. She spelled it the same way I do. While this meant that we could feign dumb if we didn’t know the answer, it did not ensure that our name would be spelled correctly–several teachers never got it right. Additionally, the other Rachels were much more sociable than I was. Hence, I got used to never turning the first time my name was called, unless it was my best friend, who usually called me “Rach” anyway.

At the same time, I started reading Animorphs. There was a character named Rachel there. I also started posting on an Animorphs message board. There were two other Rachels there. We all spelled it the same way. I adopted a psuedonym that I will answer to more readily than my given name.

Then, college. Oh, college. The honors college at my school, to be exact.

Rachels are smart, apparently. In our class of 74 people, there are six Rachels. There were three of us in one of my 20 people classes. We all spell it the same way. I have the same last initial as one of them.

There are three Rachels on my floor. My ex dated a girl named Rachel after he dated me. My SO dated a girl named Rachel before he dated me. It gives a girl identity issues when you hear your fiance mention your name, and you’re not 100% sure he’s talking about you. I hardly ever turn when I hear my name spoken. I try to go by Sanji–the name I adopted on the Animorphs boards–but, with the exception of Shadez, no one at school seems to get it!

My sister has a not-too-popular name. My cousin is named Simone. My other cousin is named Lucas. They have fairly unique names. And I am a Rachel in a sea of Rachels…

…don’t even start me on the name Mike. “I talked to Mike today.” “My Mike, or your Mike, or Justin’s Mike? Or Ekim? Or online Mike? Or…” ::screams::