I found myself watching TLC and the footage of conjoined twin girls being separated. Wonderful, they’re doing great, Adeline and Natalie! Nice! Till they pan over to the names on the cribs: Adeline…OK, so far so good, and then…Knatalye.
The parents are Elysse and John Eric; not a K in the bunch!
I wish them all the best, of course, but whaaa??
Only a knave would kname theyre chylde wyth such a knonsensycal knomenclature. A sensyble parent would knever thynk to do that!
Seriously, she was born conjoined. Didn’t she have enough to deal with without being named Knatalye?
Gnatalye (a la Gnarls Barkley) at least would give the fun nickname “Gnat”.
My grandmother had a name like this. It’s not unique, but googling it, grandpa’s obituary is in the fourth hit, so I won’t post it. Think Jorrjinna, pronounced Georgina. Her parents were very poor and barely literate. Some people want to give their children pretty names, and they do the best they can. Knatalye can always change it when she grows up.
A lifetime of heavy sighs and phonetic spelling awaits her.
But some names, in some places, at some time, won’t fly.
Mother tries to name her twin kids Cyanide and Preacher. Judge begs to differ. This happened in Wales.
I saw a Jessycah the other day
Made me think her parents were illiterate, not cute, just stupid.
Or crows.
That would be Jessycaw. Maybe with a ! at the end.
“My friends, I’m only asking for a minute out of your busy day to tell you about a little girl with a serious problem, and I hope you can find it in your hearts to help her. This is Knatalye. She’s a beautiful little girl who loves to run and play, and her family wants her to grow up and live a happy life. But Knatalye was born with a vestigial letter attached to her name. She urgently needs a procedure to have it removed, but her parents cannot afford it by themselves. Please give generously. Do it for her.”
I remember one time glancing at the birth announcements in the newspaper and seeing one poor child had been saddled with something like “Aiebiegieial.” I guess Pat Sajak had a special sale on vowels or something?
Shit, at least those are spelled correctly.
A co-worker’s daughter wanted to name her kid the name that sounds like KEE-rah and was thinking Keira. But she really wanted a “y” in there for whatever reason. So instead of the perfectly reasonable Kyra, it became Keiyra.
:smack:
I hate this one with the heat of a thousand suns… a couple who are friends of my son named their daughter Shiyann, pronounced Cheyenne.
Praise Hjesus!
I know a woman named Conswayla. It should have been Consuela except her parents had never seen the name, just heard it on TV. :smack:
A man named Harvy told me his name was spelled that way because his parents were barely literate.
I saw a cashier with the name tag “Chastady.” I thought the same thing.
I also know a kindergarten teacher who, one year got saddled with an am class that had a Brittany, a Britney, a Brittni, and a Bretagne, also a Brianna pronounced “Bree Anna,” and a Breyona. In the pm class, she had a Britney, a Britnee, a Brittnie a Brianna pronounced “Bree Ahna,” and just for added fun, a Bretta, and a boy named Brian.
She was supposed to remember all these spellings, and which one went with which child. Parents got very irate when notes came home with the wrong spelling.
This really isn’t just a matter of personal choice. It does affect other people.
And Aunjanue Ellis.
I would have spent the next twenty years hoping that Preacher grew up to be a militant atheist.
I have met a surprising number of women named Wanita. Mostly African Americans, sometimes rednecks. I grew up on the Mexican border, so the spelling kind of annoys me. At least Juan Williams spells his name correctly!
Offhand, I cannot think of any examples, but I have met people who took a Spanish name with a normal English equivalent. They used the Spanish spelling, and mangled the pronunciation into something that was an abomination to both languages.
That teacher really should have made things easy on herself and just used last names for all those bratneys. I mean, I was in a class with 5 boys with the same first name, but at least we all spelled it the same, normal way (there’re actually two ways the name is spelled, but we all had the easy, more normal one).
You mean Haysoos?