# Parents that are just askin' for it **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 4, 2006, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004 "2006-03-04T02:51:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/141 "2006-03-08T02:24:15Z")
Some people comment on me and my sisters’ names cause they all end in ‘ie’: Melanie, Penelope (but we call her Penny) and Stephanie. Mum said she truely hadn’t noticed that, she was too busy trying to avoid any names that conjured up painful memories of brats she had taught. I taught a Korean guy once, called: Bum Fuk. For obvious reasons, he searched around for an English name, and came up with…‘Orange’!!! Mum said she went to school with 18 girls called Nan. They all had a number to go with their name! and HEY, Winnifred is my gran’s name - very common for middle class Victorian baby girls in England. ---
**Author:** ![Avarie537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@Avarie537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avarie537)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/142 "2006-03-08T14:27:30Z")
Going through a tenant’s file the other day, I noticed that one of her sons had an interesting name: De’Jae. Ostensibly, pronounced like DJ. ---
**Author:** ![DoperChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@DoperChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoperChic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/143 "2006-03-08T22:34:20Z")
A friend of mine once taught two twin boys named Cu and CuCu, you know, like the clock. I can vouch for this as I taught in the same school and knew of the kids. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/144 "2006-03-08T23:01:21Z")
> [@SusanStoHelit](#): > > My first name is Holly. 99% of the other hollys I’ve met spell it like me, yet I’m always getting asked how I spell it. I used to know someone (before we fell out of touch) whose middle name was Holly. Her surname? Berry. Yes, her parents knew, and yes, they’d done it on purpose. I was named by my mother’s obstetrician about a week after I was born. Its a very pretty name, but its an archaic Arabic name. On the plus side, it means that at least I’m pretty unique. ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/145 "2006-03-08T23:04:55Z")
I went to school with a kid named Richard Fallis. No matter how often he insisted that we not abbreviate his first name, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Sometimes we just called him “Redundant”. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/146 "2006-03-08T23:13:21Z")
> [@MelCthefirst](#): > > I taught a Korean guy once, called: Bum Fuk. I know a Korean guy named Dong. > [@](#): > > Mum said she went to school with 18 girls called Nan. They all had a number to go with their name! But… but… but… [NaN in Fortran means “Not a Number”](http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/apiref/mxisnan_f.html). How could they have a number? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/147 "2006-03-08T23:16:54Z")
> [@MelCthefirst](#): > > For obvious reasons, he searched around for an English name, and came up with…‘Orange’!!! My parents named me something that rhymed with our last name, or rather, with the way that people invariably mispronounced our last name. They insisted that the problem had never occured to them. So maybe he was just looking for something that didn’t rhyme with anything. We named our daughter Hannah with the full realization that she would be called Hannah Banana. The beauty part of our plan is that we knew that people would just stop there and not bother to come up with anything worse. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/148 "2006-03-09T00:41:08Z")
> [@infamousmom](#): > > That’s been going on forever. When my son was born, I said “Nowadays, every Tom, Dick and Harry is named Jason, Ryan and Christopher.” (And no, I didn’t name him anything trendy or cute. He’s named after his great-great-grandfather, whose parents were probably following the trends of 1874 when he was born.) > > I went to high school with twins named Marilyn and Carolyn. Which was at least a little creative. But then there were the triplets named Earl, Merl, and Verl.[ That could have been my mother and her sister, but my grandparents took it one step further…they are Carolyn May and…you guessed it! Marilyn Kay. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/149 "2006-03-09T04:08:52Z")
> [@Angua](#): > > I used to know someone (before we fell out of touch) whose middle name was Holly. Her surname? Berry. Yes, her parents knew, and yes, they’d done it on purpose. I knew a woman in college whose birthday was in late December, and the family surname was Maus. Her parents quite nearly named her Mary Chris. ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/150 "2006-03-09T18:39:30Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#): > > I’m thinking how confusing it would be to yell down the hall “Justin, come here” and get four kids because they each heard their name. Nah, she can just call them by their surnames!! (runs away) ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004/151 "2006-03-09T21:21:07Z")
A local kid here in BF, Oklahoma’s name is Shune, pronounced Shawn. Mom wasn’t very good at spelling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-that-are-just-askin-for-it/347004.md?page=7)