# Making Fun of Someone’s Name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 22, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515 "2021-02-22T23:36:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/62 "2021-03-09T02:30:47Z")
Here you go. I recognize the punchline. Only vaguest of memories of the skit. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/goPerp_BWvs/maxresdefault.jpg "Baby Names - Saturday Night Live") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goPerp_BWvs) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/63 "2021-03-09T03:02:19Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Here you go. That was awesome, thanks. This memory held up. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/64 "2021-03-09T03:31:32Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I think it’s just that, considering the sorts of names so many kids were getting 10 years ago, when the cre8tyv name trend was in full spin, Charles Robert was a outlier. > > My 14-yr-old’s name is John, and we’ve met only two other kids named John his age in 14 years, plus maybe three or four Jonathans, two with cre8tyv spellings. Also two much younger Johns, one who was called Jack. The thing is, though, those traditional names still cropped up too, even ten years ago. It’s not like all names were Bradyn or whatever - for boys, especially. I think it’d have to be a Gen X name to really seem out of place on a baby born within the past decade, and even then, with such a variety of names, it’s harder for any one name to stand out. Obvs though I’m coming at this from a different perspective in the UK. If you looked at a class list from about ten years ago, at least half the names could also have appeared on a nearby WWI war memorial. Charles would have been absolutely standard. Meeting a ten-year-old called Charlie would be completely and utterly unremarkable. John and Peter less so, and Paul actually feels a little gen X. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/65 "2021-03-09T04:29:52Z")
My given name was also used for the titular character in a series of children’s books, in which said character always screwed up everything she did except baking. I hated the teasing in general, but I also really hated those books in particular. I never changed my name legally but I still go by a shortened version. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/66 "2021-03-10T03:04:45Z")
^ If that’s the name I’m thinking of, I’ve always thought it was exceptionally lovely. I had a friend who let everyone know she planned on naming her future kid that. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/67 "2021-03-10T03:26:51Z")
Ever since junior high, when I meet someone that has a peculiar name, I go out of my way not to say anything about it until I know them very, very well. Like months, or a year later, and if I do, I will ask questions about the name, not make jokes. They know what their name is, they had to go through the same gauntlet we all did growing up. I’m not going to sound funny or clever by cracking a joke about it, so I just keep it to myself. The more odd or funnier the name, the more you stand out by NOT being the asshole that goes there. It’s sad, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/68 "2021-03-10T05:06:21Z")
Oddly, no. And I say that because my name is one consonant off from a decent insult. In fact, if you say that word quickly, it sounds exactly like my name. Yet no one ever called me that, or anything else really with my name. I discovered the similarity by myself, and kept quiet about it. That said, there was one neighbor who liked to playfully tease me by “forgetting” my name. He’d get it partly right, but it would be another name. One stuck long enough that I suspect he may have forgotten it wasn’t my real name. Most other teasing was in the vein of calling me “weird.” But I kinda embraced that as a compliment. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/69 "2021-03-16T01:55:11Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Making fun of anyone is pretty childish, IMO, and making fun of something over which they have no control (like their name) is even more childish. Like our Mom, my brother and I are redheads. And being from the northeast where hating the Irish used to be a sport, we were tormented for red hair through elementary school. Then, once we hit middle school-ish age, our last name became more fun to pick on. Even now adults _always_ ask me to spell it, not because it’s difficult to spell, but because they’re sure they misheard. sigh. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/70 "2021-03-17T12:59:44Z")
We were once an Austro-Hungarian family with a Germanic family name until the late 1800s when Hungarianization of names was “encouraged”. So my great grandfather went with the program and the name lost key vowels and a consonant. The Hungarian spelling survives to this day, though my uncle who wound up in Germany changed it back to its German spelling. I’ve come across a couple of folks with our spelling in Germany and Slovakia who are undoubtedly distant cousins. The Hungarian spelling thwarts people from pronouncing it correctly though computer speech software handles it with no problem. People have accidentally mangled it through my life but of course in elementary, Jr High and High School it was the subject of deliberate altering. Not so much now. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/71 "2021-03-25T00:42:11Z")
Strangely, I don’t remember anyone making fun of my name, which is really surprising since my last name is spelled exactly like a common food-related item. In fact, I had been out of college for years before anyone joked about my last name, and the person in question actually asked permission first. I’m named after both grandmothers; at the request of my maternal grandmother (with whom I shared a first name), I have always gone by my middle name because she hated the way people in this region tended to pronounce her name. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2021, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/72 "2021-04-16T09:36:13Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That said, there was one neighbor who liked to playfully tease me by “forgetting” my name. He’d get it partly right, but it would be another name. My son get that sometimes. His birth certificate says “John,” though at his bris he was name “Yochanan.” His father and I call him “Johnny,” and agreed that at any time, if he ever asks us to call him “John,” we will, but he has not. At his size, it’s sort of ironic. We let other members of the family call him whatever they were inclined, and he has half a dozen nicknames. We knew we were giving him a dirt-common name in a sea of creative spellings, and completely made-up names. We figured he’d get a few toilet jokes, but he actually hasn’t, because apparently, post-millennials don’t use that euphemism much. What he does get is people who pretend to have forgotten his name, or to have gotten it wrong, as though they’d never heard it before. He gets that from adults. Kids his age have not come up with much in regard to his name, so instead, he gets crap for being tall. Good-natured crap-- he’s never really been picked on-- but no one gets through childhood without hearing some kind of taunt. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2021, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/73 "2021-04-16T10:13:01Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > What he does get is people who pretend to have forgotten his name, or to have gotten it wrong, as though they’d never heard it before. He gets that from adults. Interesting. In my case, I’m still not sure if he initially forgot my name and was covering for it, and then it became a gag. But I doubt that’s what’s happening with your son. Despite being the tallest or second tallest guy in the school for the longest time, that was never really anything people teased me, even good natured. A handful of adults shorter than me would ask “How’s the weather up there?” and stuff, but that’s about it. If anything, I was weirdly proud about it. I remember being deflated when I figured out that a handful of the athletics people (mostly in basketball) had grown taller than my measly 6’2". ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2021, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/74 "2021-04-17T01:11:22Z")
Kids’ll be kids… which is not always good. And no one’s safe. You’d think with a name like Daniel, nothing would happen. But then came the TV show Daniel Boone… [_Daniel Boone was a man. Yes, a big man._ _With an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he…_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hwqdQ0SkjQ) Yes, I can still hear it. Come to think of it, nicknames sure were a thing for boys back in the 50s/60s… I can think back to my grade school and think: Ready Eddie, Bird, StingRay, Koober, Dizolie, Cubber, Dinty, _Daaaavy [/Goliath voice]…_ …and PeePee (sorry, Paul Pedersen, we couldn’t resist). ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2021, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/75 "2021-05-09T03:39:24Z")
Quebec has specific protections to name under the _Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms_, namely: 1. Every person has a right to the safeguard of their dignity, honour and reputation And in the _Civil Code_ 1. Every person is the holder of personality rights, such as the right to life, the right to the inviolability and integrity of his person, and the right to respect of his name, reputation and privacy. I was wondering how these principles apply to Ontario and _The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms_ which has different language. Perhaps @Spoons or @Northern_Piper knows this. Probably too complicated? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2021, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/76 "2021-05-09T08:18:09Z")
Well, the Quebec provisions only apply to Quebec. They don’t apply to Ontario. The Charter, being a part of our Constitution, trumps all. It overrides the Quebec Charter, as long as Quebec is a part of Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2021, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/77 "2021-05-09T09:08:09Z")
The name on my Israeli passport is “Yehoshua”, while the name on my U.S. passport is Joshua. Growing up in Israel my English-speaking family and friends called my Josh, while I insisted that Hebrew-speakers call me Yehoshua. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake, as Yehoshua is a long, cumbersome, massively uncool name. So people either mocked my name, or gave me nicknames - among them Yosh, Yoshi, Yeshu, Shuki, Jesus, and, of course, Josh (although the latter was pronounced quite differently than the American way). I hated it, but at a certain point, I realized that it was inevitable, so once I graduated high school I decided to go with the least-hated nickname, and started introducing myself as Josh. It worked; “Josh” my be an unusual nickname around here, but people accepted it, and rarely called me anything else (except for my wife’s grandparents, who used to call me “George”). After a while, even the old friends who used to call me Yehoshua started calling me Josh, and now, the only person who still calls me me by my Hebrew name is my accountant - because I don’t want him accidentally writing “Josh” on a tax form. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/78 "2021-05-10T04:43:50Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > When I was 19, I dated a guy who didn’t believe in nicknames, and because I thought I was in love, I decided to be Michelle again, and I’ve used it ever since. And apart from really bad renditions of the Beatles’ song being sung at me, or the occasional comedian who insists on “Michelle ma belle,” plus the fact that I’m old and grouchy, no one messes with my name. I would never sing that at you. Because my gf’s name is Joan Brooks, so I use it for _Joan Brooks, Gadzooks!_ ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/79 "2021-05-11T01:22:48Z")
I knew a woman who was named Eleanor Rigby. But she was maybe ninety years old decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515/80 "2021-05-11T01:55:29Z")
Thanks. I get the impression privacy laws are a real hodgepodge in Ontario much of the time, outside of a few specific areas. But my focus was on “name” as per the thread. Section 15(1) of the Charter would seem to allow equal protections and benefits of the law without discrimination on the basis of many personal characteristics. In addition to enumerated grounds, it would seem to allow for analogous ones if there is an effect of imposing a burden, withholding a benefit or rendering the individual not fully capable nor deserving of equal consideration. The goal would seem to be preventing the violation of human dignity through the imposition of disadvantage or prejudice. If one considers these constitutional values, perhaps courts are tending to apply them more widely beyond the ambit of Section 32. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-fun-of-someone-s-name/933515.md?page=3)