# Unique or odd names kids come up with **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 11, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656 "2013-11-11T17:44:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/21 "2013-11-12T18:31:59Z")
I LOVE listening to my son try to translate son lyrics. He mis-hears them sometimes, so instead of taking the Chevy to the levy to drink whiskey and rye, he takes the Chevy to the levy to get crispy and dry. And my daughter used to call outside “ah-sees,” which then evolved to “ah-doo,” and finally to outside. There are a few other things they say that crack me up, though they’re old enough that a lot of the names they have for things are kind of descriptive. There’s a large sculpture near an office park close by that shows a huge man (possibly Zeus) coming out of the ground. A gigantic head comes out of the earth and, where appropriate, a large knee and a giant foot. My daughter calls it “The Falling Down Man.” ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/22 "2013-11-12T18:32:56Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > OTOH, I have her beat - when I was 3, 4 yo, I had my own language that only my brother understood. I would say something, the family would turn to Jim, and he’d say “John wants milk” (or whatever.) Hey, I missed this one the first time I looked! My sister and I still have this: we can understand each other with mouths full/while brushing teeth/at the dentist/after the dentist. I think it stems from that time, understanding each other’s half formed, made-up words. We also talk a lot in made-up words when we’re together, and combine Dutch and English into Dinglish, so that often other people can’t understand us. We have our own, sensical Dinglish though, other people’s Dinglish makes no sense to me. My mum is friends with an expat who has brain damage and can only speak Dinglish, but he’s really hard to follow for us until we get the hang of it. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/23 "2013-11-12T18:37:00Z")
My sister couldn’t say grandpa, so he was PaKoo. For years it wasn’t the UPS guy, it was the bug zapper man. (He delivered a bug zapper to our house one time) ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/24 "2013-11-12T18:48:01Z")
My mother was the first grandchild of my maternal great-grand parents. She was doted upon and she called her mother’s parents Mama and Danny. Danny because, well she was 2 or 3 years old and couldn’t pronounce the word correctly. My great-grandfather thought it was great. His sweet little granddaughter had come up with a new name for him and he took ‘Danny’ as his stage name and played on the fiddling circuit including the Grand Ole Opry many times. To the day he died, he was known wide and far as Danny. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/25 "2013-11-12T19:56:35Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > Hey, I missed this one the first time I looked! My sister and I still have this: we can understand each other with mouths full/while brushing teeth/at the dentist/after the dentist. I think it stems from that time, understanding each other’s half formed, made-up words. We also talk a lot in made-up words when we’re together, and combine Dutch and English into Dinglish, so that often other people can’t understand us. > > We have our own, sensical Dinglish though, other people’s Dinglish makes no sense to me. My mum is friends with an expat who has brain damage and can only speak Dinglish, but he’s really hard to follow for us until we get the hang of it. My son had his own language, too. He called it Bonish. I understood a little bit of it, but not much. It was primarily a written language, but also had spoken components as well. It was fairly robust. I wish I remembered more of it. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/26 "2013-11-12T23:17:29Z")
We had a friend of the family called Eugene. My younger daughter, a toddler at the time, would refer to him as Mygene. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/27 "2013-11-13T01:59:43Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > We had a friend of the family called Eugene. My younger daughter, a toddler at the time, would refer to him as Mygene. That is sweet. 🙂 My little cousin on hearing the older relatives calling Grandmother’s dog, Spot, began to call the creature “Yuhspot.” My toddler daughter’s name for her stuffed rabbit was Tuna Half. That came about when an older relative asked her what the bunny’s name was and she thought she was being asked how old she was. ---
**Author:** ![Charley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/97f17d/32.png) [@Charley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charley)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/28 "2013-11-13T06:06:38Z")
My two year old refers to our friend’s 9 year old son, William, as “women”. He’s very introverted and serious and not entirely sure if he likes it or not. Until 3 days ago when she was persuaded to give up dummies\* at night she always took two to bed. She had ‘dummy’ and ‘ubber dummy’. \*pacifier, but you knew that, right? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/29 "2013-11-13T06:14:22Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > Husband’s mother is Mimi, because she referred to herself as Memaw, and the oldest granddaughter managed to get Mimi out of her mouth. It just stuck, and it’s easy for little kids to say. My grandmother is Mimi too, though that came from my inability to say “grammy”. My sister dubbed my grandfather “cranky” (from “grampy”). That one didn’t stick… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/30 "2013-11-13T09:37:34Z")
I have a cousin Philip who grew up with the name Bobby because that’s how his older sister mispronounced baby when he was born. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/31 "2013-11-13T09:46:52Z")
Got updates on Poto and Gabengo just now: “The girls were born with normal intelligence. As of 2007, Cabengo worked on a supervised assembly line at a job training center; Poto cleaned tables and floors at a fast-food restaurant.” [http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2009/03/poto-and-cabengo.html](http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2009/03/poto-and-cabengo.html) ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/32 "2013-11-13T10:41:52Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > My great-grandparents were: Gingo, Grandy, Old Oma and Old Opa. I named them myself. 🆒 > > Draught = giraffe > We call draughts “giraffes”, because my little sister misheard my mum and for years thought a giraffe would come into the room if she didn’t close the door. “Close the door because of the giraffe” and “is there a giraffe in here?” are perfectly normal things to say. > > Stork = Oliver > We call all storks Oliver, because in Dutch it’s “ooievaar”, which troubled my youngest sister when she was learning Dutch. She knew someone called Oliver, so she decided that all storks must be called Oliver. Now we say: have you seen Oliver sitting on that nest up there? And going to our local pub The Stork: I’m going to see Oliver. Going O/T; but do I take it that you live in the Netherlands, and have storks among your local wildlife? I love storks – sadly, they’re not part of the fauna of the UK, where I live. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/33 "2013-11-13T20:49:41Z")
I said “shasha” because I couldn’t pronounce “sister”. ---
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656/34 "2013-11-13T21:04:36Z")
Great-grandma Todd - Gagi It may not count, but my pet name for my grandfather PR was Par, but I didn’t start calling him that until I was an adult. My sister’s grandkids call her MiMi instead of grandma. Her husband is Pop-pop. A much younger cousin called me Shuri, my sister Min and our cousin Sul. We still refer to each other by those names to this day. The younger cousin is now 30 and I’m 46. I called my grandmother Mom for years because that’s what everyone else called her. (My mom has 6 brothers and sisters, all younger. The uncle who is closest to my age is only 2 years older than me.) I just remembered that the aforementioned uncle was known as Dinky or Dink because his brother couldn’t pronounce Richard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unique-or-odd-names-kids-come-up-with/673656.md?page=1)