I work for an HMO that manages Medicaid for this part of Oregon.
Due to budgetary concerns Oregon welfare is pretty much only accepting children and pregnant women right now, so I see a lot of children who sound like they were named by, well, teenage mothers.
Actual names I have seen:
Jealousy Rose
Destiny Fyre
And a dumpster full of Ashleighs, Hunters, Coles, and Masons
But today I ran across a family with 4 boys:
Justin (fine)
Austin (a little repetitive, but no big deal)
Custin (Custin?)
And finally, born 1/1/2006…
Ustin
Did they run out of ideas? Did the dog eat their baby-name book? Or do they just want their children to disown them?
Remember parents - your children will pick your nusing-home someday.
A coworker and his wife just had their fifth child, a boy, and named him Odin Thor.
Do the first four kids have similar mythy names? Nope, just this one.
Dad’s a short, smallish Mexican American guy, and Mom’s very petite, way to give the kid not likely to be large enough to defend himself such a great targeting name.
I work for the PA Department of Welfare, entering applications into our database system, so I manage to see a LOT of dubious naming. “Destiny” is very popular, if just a bit grandiose. Texas cities are big, for some reason…I see a lot of Dallases and Austins and even saw a Houston once. One thing I noticed just today was the fact that if a family has two boys, and one is named Jeremy, the other one will be named Justin at least 70% of the time.
I teach preschool, I have a Hunter and a Mason in my regular class this year. In my afternoon enrichment class, I have an Ashley and an Ashleigh and two Coles.
:smack:
When naming the China bambinas, one thing I did was check popular names. If any of my potential name candidates was in the top 50 or so names for the past year/decade, then it was off the list.
The above examples are just the lowest common denominator taken to a revolting degree. ymmv
My wife worked at the local hospital when we lived on Kwajalein. The hospital no longer delivers babies (except in emergencies, of course), but back in the mid-1980s they did, and sometimes the Marshalese would be in the unit, and she would handle the birth certificates.
Two examples that stand out in my mind: Rocket Brain ____, and Cinderlella Lace ___.
Actually, I thought the last one was rather pretty.
In my class at school we had a Duane (really odd for rural England!) an Elgar and a Bryher to name but a few. But I have an extremely oddly named child now, (and one with a bog-standard ordinary name, which is even odder) so I can hardly point any fingers.
I once knew a girl named Tigger, but it was short for Antigone, which I guess isn’t much better. My friend has a half-sister named Phaedra. Do these people just pick then names because they sound good, regardless of meaning?
Hubby works in a prison. Back when he was a case manager, he had to approve visiting lists. One inmate listed his five children.
LaTeisha
LaMeisha
LaKeisha
LaVisha
LaDeisha
And not all of them were girls.
Honestly, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be one of those kids. My grandparents had a hell of a time keeping all of their kids’/grandkids’ names straight. I would often hear, “Sara-Laurie-Megan-Lissa . . . whatever your name is-- come here!”
I went to school with a Brazillian exchange student. Her best friend, she told me, was named Copy Machine. Her parents spoke no English, but thought those words sounded very pretty. (Well, they kinda do, I guess.)