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.
Worked with a guy whose wife’s nickname was “Micki.” That’s because her parents had been so positive that she was going to be a boy that they’d only picked out one name, Michael. And that’s why her real name was… Michaelene.
I suppose I ought to be thankful that I’m too old to have gone to school with Ashleigh, Destiny, Ka’Neesha, Flint, etc etc etc. Although I have four nieces named Whitney, Morgan, Taylor, and Shelby.
My mother took her middle name, mangled it a bit, and gave it to me as my first name. With a last name like Bodoni, I could always tell when the teachers reached my name. They’d be calling out Tommy Adams and Janet Bobbsey, and then there’d be a long silence. I got to the point of calling out “(MyRealFirstName) Bodoni, HERE” during the silence.
Shoot, they gave girls names like that a lot where I grew up in Virginia. I knew girls named Allen Carter (and she always used both names), Winston, Betty Allen, Kent, and Tazewell (pronounced Tazz-well).
That name, being Irish Gaelic, actually has several “proper” spellings. Megan, Meghan, Meghann, Meagan, Meaghan, Meaghann… they’re all correct, depending on how you transliterate the Gaelic.
That’s fine–it’s still annoying.
I am guilty of this myself–I liked the name Nathan, which made my husband gag. He liked the name John, so we had Johnathan. I didnt’ realize that most of the world spells it Jonathan. (and don’t even mention the ones that do “on” as an ending–that makes me nauseated). If I had known…at least it’s not that common. He goes by John, btw.
My wife, the elementary school music teacher, had a girl in her class a bunch of years ago. She ran the names the first day, and said the girl’s name. It was Bagina.
Yes. Bagina. My wife, being wise, said,( phonetically ) " Buh-Geena?? ". The girl adamantly insisted it was " BaJieNah ", rhyming with the female genitalia. My wife refused.
Wife mentions incident to Principal at end of day. Principal gets INFURIATED call from parent the next day, demanding to know how dare any teacher insult her daughter by not pronouncing her name properly?
Principal coolly informed parent that either this girl, for the duration of her stay in that school, was known as “Buh-Geena”, or she would be addressed as “Miss Smith” ( *sic[/].
Parent relented. Kid was brutally teased. For a long time.
Bagina. I swear to god.
That’s up there with “Feh-Mahh-Lay”, a name wife has seen more than once. How’s it spelled? " Female". Why? Cause on the birth certificate, it reads, " Male " and “Female”.
:rolleyes:
enipla, was Atom’s last name, by chance, HeartMother?
Can you sue your parents for giving you a crummy name? Because back in the early 90’s, I worked for the Family Services Department in an inner-city district, and I saw all sorts of names on kids that I swear had my parents landed me with, I’d be seeing a solicitor the moment I turned 18 - kids called Ziggylion, Whatislove, Manteufel, and Vivalasvegas (boys), the twin girls Devil and Doll and a little girl called Ruby-Cinderella.
Best, though, was the boy called Gooey. Or so we thought. His name was actually Guy, but his mother named him after reading it in a book and didn’t know how it was pronounced.
The Op has it right - parents are just asking for it…
Little girl named Justice. (I think they’re just asking for vision problems.)
And one of my new “how not to name the baby” rules:
If it’s pronounced just like the boys’ names Jason, Ryan, or Harley, I’m not going to KNOW it’s a girl’s name until you spell Jacynne, Ryanne, or Harleigh. So stop getting in a snit when I ask how old “he” is.
“Precious Diamond.” My thought: How cute! She’s already got her stripper stage name! (I know, I’ve told this story before, but it makes me giggle more every time.)
Please do not put any punctuation marks in your child’s name unless you know what they are called, because it impedes your ability to spell the name. La’Danya does NOT have a “hyphen” in it, but if you tell me that it does, by God, I’m going to PUT a hyphen in it, and then your doctor’s office is going to complain to me about getting records with “La-Danya” and we’re going to have a go-round. (There are valid HIPPA concerns involved-- if you don’t get someone’s name spelled right, it’s harder to make sure you match up records to the correct files.)
I’m generally all for unique names, but there are at least two Uniques in my area, one of whom isn’t even an only child OR an only daughter. (I asked. I had to know.) There are about 243 Trinitys, one of which I exempt from the “trendy” bandwagon because her birthday is 3-3. (No, I don’t know if she’s a third child.)
Oops- I forgot that I know a Tyranny at work.
Her sister’s name is Liberty. Brother’s name is Sam (huh?).
I often wonder about her parents. She’s nice. What’s even odder is that she is black. I would have thought that that name would not be chosen(?).
And I also know an Oolong0-her dad was a sailor in the Navy and he loved Oolong tea. Cool, in a way. (beats Pekoe anyway!).
Thank you for posting this. My name is Meaghan (pronounced MEE-gan). It’s been my name for 36 years, so it certainly is not some wacky name spelling trend that my parents jumped on. It may be annoying that it’s not spelled like it sounds or even pronounced like it looks, but it’s a real, legitimate name. I’m endlessly amazed by people who say to me, “why do you spell/pronouce your name like that?” Clearly, my parents did not hear my protests from the womb :rolleyes:
That said, it’s my name, and I like it. Even though sometime when I call people and say “It’s Meaghan”, the reply is “It’s who again?” Drives me nuts.
I have some Deadhead friends who gave their daughter the middle name “Sativa.”
I’m sure she’s going to just overflow with love for them each time she’s selected for extra scrutiny crossing into the U.S. in the coming decades. Thanks a bunch, mom and dad!
My dad would’ve been one of these parents if it weren’t for my mom. He wanted to name me Bruce. As is I just got off being named afte a semi-obscure sixties musician.
My last name is Lee, incidentally.
Oh, yeah, Dad, like that wouldn’t have gotten me beaten senseless.
I just had the dubious distinction of being responsible for naming another human being, a daunting task nonetheless. Being a older (38) first-time mother I was completely out of the loop in regards to naming. I knew that ever other knocked up 14 year old was naming their child Kayleigh/Kaylee/Klee/whatever or Katelynn/katelyn/kaitlain/whatever, what EVERYONE FAILED TO TELL ME is that they ALL call them Katie.
Which kinda spoils it for my offspring, as I liked the names Kate/Katie but hated Katherine/Kathleen so I decided to just name her Kate. So now she is going to be one of 1k Katies in her class and to add insult to injury, we gave her my husbands Grandparents last name as a middle name (Carson) which is trendy as all hell ALSO.
I didn’t mean to be a bad mommy, but I feel awful for her, I can’t even call her KC because guess what? It’s also trendy. (Kasey/Casey/Caseigh/whatever)
I’m thinking Howard might be a good nickname.
The kicker? I am named after a certain King of Rock’s only daughter, who was born a skant 1 1/2 months before me and I had 7 other Lisa Marie’s in a class with me once. The curse continues.
How can I ever make it up to my little bug?
She really is adorable? Did I mention how cute my little snotty mcfarterson is? She’s got this pouty face when she doesn’t want to wake up that just kills me. And her little sighs, they make my heart beat.
NO one can top this one. A friend of mine sent a link to his son’s (who is a Navy photog) photo site.
A young Airman, (not sure why she was in a Navy shoot, but that’s beside the point), was working on some plane, and under the photo was her name.
Jinxqueenjennifer.
No, really.
Her last name was hispanic, so maybe I’M the idiot and Jinxqueenjennifer is a famous Saint or something and a common name for little girls. But…wow, what a monker!!!
