I was reading about Ancient Greek naming practices today, and came across a word that I’d never seen before: copronym, literally ‘poop name.’ Yes, it seems that some people gave their children names derived from Gk. κόπρος ‘dung.’ There’s a Kopreus and a Kopris and a Kopron.
My source very dryly notes that “recent work on copronyms points to the conclusion that they were given by parents (especially, perhaps, those who had already lost children) to avert the ‘evil eye’.”
But seriously! What kind of world are you living in if you really feel your best shot for giving your child a good life is to name them Poopy or Poopert or Poopilla…or…or…?
I did know about the Byzantine emperor Constantine V, known as Copronymus (shit-named). It that case, however, it was apparently a nickname given to him by people who didn’t like him very much, and not the kind of thing you would call him to his face.
I believe a number of cultures have the practice of giving children the name of a malady or risk in the hopes it will avert the disease or maloccurrence.
Det. Samuel ‘George’ Francisco:
It is like your name… Sykes. I’m sure it doesn’t bother you at all that it sounds like “ss’ai k’ss,” two words in my language which mean “excrement” and “cranium.”
Apotropaic names. They’ve taken different forms in various cultures. The Old Kingdom Egyptian custom was for simple positive descriptive names–“the Beautiful One”, “the Healthy One”, etc. New Kingdom Egyptians were partial to theophoric names, which incorporated the name of a god in hopes of invoking protection and patronage. (Plenty of modern names are of theophoric origin as well–“Theodore” is an obvious one.)
Other cultures, including the ancient Greeks, sometimes gave “bad” names to children either in the direct aversion sense you describe (similar to wishing performers to “break a leg”), or to make them sound worthless to demons or other evil spirits. This may also be associated with customs around the changing of names–for example, in ancient Greece, fathers could change their children’s names, and it was not uncommon for given names to be supplanted by nicknames or acquired names. A child might be given an unpleasant name for protection to start with, only to have it changed to something else later.
A common Thai man’s name is Therdsak. Yes, it is pronounced very similar to “turd sack.” I would definitely change it to Thomas or Theodore if I went to school in the West.
It’s not uncommon in Cameroon for people to give babies unpleasant names to discourage malevolent forces from taking an interest in the child.
This is often just one of many names, however, and it’d rarely be used after infancy. The child would also pick up a village name, a religious name, a birth order name, a marriage name, a parental name, etc., as well as a nickname that would probably be what most people call them. A name wasn’t necessarily something you’d expect to use your whole life.
There was a special name for kids born after a loss-- Nawissa, where I lived. I was told it means “Is this one for me?”, and it shares a root with the word for “hurt”.
