Three times over. It stops being embarrassing fairly early on.
FTR, I generally work hard to not be mean. Oblivious, OTOH, comes naturally.
[QUOTE=Irishman]
“Sage Moonblood” isn’t horrible. Sage is actually something I wouldn’t flinch at. “Moonblood” is just weird to my ears, but I’m sure there are cultures where it is fine.
[/QUOTE]
Moonblood = Menstrual Blood
Willow’s a fine name as far as I’m concerned. I worked with a woman called that years ago. It had been passed down through her family and she had named her daughter that to continue the tradition.
A quick check shows that her daughter, at least, is still living a few miles away from me…
And I’ve never heard of Pilot Inspektor but given the ‘European’ spelling of Inspektor, maybe Pilot’s pronounced more the way the French would say it, like Peelo…
Although I have no idea what goes on in their heads it always seems that these names are more about the parent than the kid. “look at me I’m deep, I know the name of some obscure poet.” Or “look at how creative I am! A mere mortal would never come up with this name.”
The perfect example being Kyd Duchovny, allegedly named after a writer.
Who cares? “Kyd” is a cruel name to bestow on a child, and it speaks extremely poorly of David Duchovny and Tea Leoni that they’d saddle their child with such a horrible name, no matter the justification. If I knew a writer named “Fuck Face” whose writing I truly admired I still wouldn’t name my child that.
Hey, how did we forget Rob Morrow’s daughter? Her name is Tu. Think about it.
what’s wrong with MPSIMS? really this thing you guys have about sticking any thing that smells of celebritydom in cafe society is weird. Baby names in cafe society? what about the essence of celebrity fart smells or the embouchure of a celebrity burp? cafe society?
Oh, the name was given in the “daughters” list, hence my confusion.
I mostly like the weird celebrity kid names. I’m obviously in a small minority, but while the SDMB tends to skew left politically, it’s pretty uptight in many other ways. More weird celebrity names please. Even Tu Morrow.
I always thought that Gweneth Paltrow must be a fan of the Earthsea Cycle. Tenar’s daughter is named Apple. Anyway, that’s how I like to think about it. It makes me like her a little bit better to think that she has good taste in literature.
[QUOTE=astorian]
“Destry” doesn’t sound like a bad name for Steven Spielberg’s son. It’s unusual, but it’s not the kind of name that’s going to make classmates snicker or strangers sneer, “Where did you get THAT name?” Steven Spielberg is a fim buff, and named his son after the hero of his favorite classic Western (Jimmy Stewart’s Destry Rides Again).
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How many people do you think really know that? How many kids are going to recognize that? No, that boy will get all kinds of shit.
“Hey, you’re Destro. Let’s play GI Joe and beat up Destro.”
“It’s Destry.”
“Everybody Destroy Destro!”
That makes it slightly less stupid than just a cutesy spelling of “Kid”. Still, nobody is going to know that, and all the “kids” at school are going to give him hell. You think high school is going to be fun for “Kyd”?
Nonsense. Sure, there are numerous similar ideas of common words used as names, but those have tradition behind them. “Apple” sounds too much like what is packed in the lunch bag. “What do you have for lunch, Apple?” “No, I got a pear.” “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Apple.” “You talk to fruit?” “She’s Apple.” “You’re named after fruit?”
I’m with you, and always notice how uptight this board is about names.
Granted I do think there’s a limit, and that “Audio Science” is over it (mainly it’s names that are just words that don’t lend themselves to being names, that I really don’t get), but I’m fine with most of them.
Jermajesty is also really stupid, obviously, but it sounds almost great compared to T.I.'s son Messiah Ya’Majesty.
Honestly, I doubt having a weird name is that big a factor in how well a kid fits in with his peers. I doubt many of this kids on this list are going to be having too hard a go of it. Take Kyd Duchovny. He’s likely to be a good looking guy, considering his parents. Assuming his parents are moderately savvy with their money, or can find work consistently, he’s going to be rich. And he’ll have grown up around extremely charismatic people who have earned millions and millions of dollars from their ability to manipulate other people. All else being equal, odds are pretty good that this kid’s going to have very little trouble in high school. Meanwhile, some kid with the sensible name of “Richard” will go through four years as “Dickhead,” because he’s fat and dresses poorly.
I have a little first hand experience with this subject. I have the fairly uncommon first name of “Mac.” And I was a fat kid. I got a shit-ton of McDonald’s related jokes at the expense of my name. I never disliked my name, though - even as a kid, I knew that I was getting shit because the other kids were jerks who didn’t like me, and changing my name wouldn’t have changed how they treated me.
I’ve met two adult women named “Apple.” Both were from Southeast Asian - one was Thai, IIRC, and the other was Filipino. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing with that area, or what, but it’s not something that originated with the Paltrows.
One of them was a transwoman, too, so she presumably chose that name herself.
Really, I’d guess the biggest problem most of these kids will have with their names is when they get to an age where they can Google themselves (or their parents) and see all the nasty comments from jerks on message boards.
Valid point. The little bastards have no difficulty taking them off. Why is it so hard to put them on?
I believe the official word is still “widowed.” And, my friend, I express my condolences, having stared that one in the face from both sides. But “The Inexplicable” is still a mega-hot name.
Well, considering that Destry Spielberg’s Dad is worh about a billion dollars, something tells me he won’t be going to schools where he has to worry about getting beaten up for his lunch money. Hmmm???
He can always say, “Oh, you think I have a silly name? I guess I’ll just have my chauffeur drive me back to my mansion, where I’ll cry about that by the pool, while the servants fetch me a snack. And if that doesn’t make me feel better, I’ll just buy a Jaguar in a few years and nail your girlfriends.”
Ivy used to be a fairly common girl’s name in Britain, I wouldn’t class it as unusual here.
Oddly, this is one of those gendered terms that doesn’t make sense. A man whose wife dies is called a “widower”. But that word looks like it should be applied to a man that dies and leaves his wife, a widow, behind. So if a woman dies and leaves a widower behind, does her dying make him widowered? Would seem to.
Yeah, even in America, I wouldn’t say it’s common, but not really something that comes across as weird either. Seems no worse to me than, say, Lilly.
There are quite a few Apples in Thailand, but it’s never their real given name. Only a nickname. Every Thai man and woman has a nickname that they generally go by more often than their given name. Often a person’s co-workers won’t even know someone’s given name: “I’m looking for Nitaya.” “Who?” “Nitaya.” “Don’t know anyone here named that.” “She goes by Apple.” “Oh, Apple. I’ll run get her.”
The nickname is bestowed as a child. Local custom often dictates you should give a baby a “bad” nickname such as Frog so that evil spirits will think it’s an ugly child and so won’t take it away. But that’s not always the case. Apple is common because it’s a rather expensive fruit here, making it somewhat precious.