Meh, I’m not slapping “A-million” in the face, I’m telling a message board I think it’s a stupid name.
Have you tried asking your daughter about the difference between “normal” names and “weird” names? I have a feeling she won’t have any idea what you’re talking about. And nor will most kids of her generation. Great innit.
I don’t believe it. Or maybe I do.
Come off it. You’re in a restaurant and the waiteratrix introduces herself as Lasagne, and you wouldn’t laugh? Like hell. I’d be on the floor, and so would everyone else. I’m still laughing from reading that post.
Laughter is involuntary, at least some of the time. What is funny is funny. Expecting the entire world to find your kid’s stupid name un-funny is frankly unrealistic. I could leave the house wearing underpants on my head and spend my entire life telling people that my fashion choices are my own, and laughing at me is childish. Or, I could just not wear underpants on my head.
That choice is mine, though. When you give your child an obviously silly name, that’s like sending them to school with those underpants glued to their heads. I mean, do you have to? Really?
By definition, most people will answer “yes”. Q.E.D.
Asked and answered I suppose.
To be clear BTW, since I’m not sure if you were using the general you, my own kids’ names turned out all to be in the top twenty for their respective years… So if you thought I was defending my own meaning decisions, I wasn’t.
Of course I wouldn’t laugh… What did I just say in my first post?!
Sorry, yeah: General “you”, if that wasn’t clear. Didn’t mean to sound like I was picking on you in particular.
Anyway, I’m just saying: Yeah, maybe I’m childish. Maybe I can be an asshole at times. But if someone names their kid “Snotsocker Pants-On-Head”, maybe I’m still not the one in the most need of some introspection.
I think the real question is: Is mocking stupid names worse than threadshitting?
This is a topic that really pushes my buttons, I admit. Anyway I’ve said what I have to say.
I quoted it, so quoting it again would be a tremendous waste of electrons.
With no sense of humour, life must be hell.
It pushes my buttons too. My parents gave me a name that’s unusual outside Jewish circles, and for some reason makes gentiles go dyslexic (I get called Rivak a lot). I don’t regret it-- albeit, I did try going by Rebecca once, and gave that up because of the number of people who took the liberty of calling me “Becky” without having been invited to do so. I hate Becky. My parents also gave me a middle name that has a sound that doesn’t even exist in English. Another thing I hate is when my parents would try to get gentiles to say the glottal fricative in “Chaya.” For cripes’ sake, just let them say “Haya.” And while we’re at it, you should have spelled it that way.
Now, my parents gave me an honest Jewish name. They weren’t trying to be creative or unusual. There were other Rivkahs at my school, and the rabbi at the synagogue we went to when I was little had a daughter about seven years older than me named Rivkah, the result of which was that at shul, I got called Rivkah Chaya by nearly everyone.
There’s not really anything to do about my name, and as it is, I don’t correct people who aren’t filling out official forms when they spell it “Rivka,” or something.
But my experience tells me that it’s ridiculous and maybe even a little cruel to name your daughter something like “Courtney,” but decide to spell it “Kortnee,” or spell Jennifer “Geniphur.” The last thing a kindergarten teacher wants is a roster with a Brittany, a Bretagne, a Britni, a Britney, and a Bretnee, especially when she also probably has a Brianna, a Briyona, and another Brianna, but pronounced differently from the first one, and she is supposed to remember each one, and which goes with which child, or beware the wrath of the parents.
I would never laugh at a kid’s name in earshot of the kid or their friends. But there are some stupid names out there. There’s a difference between an unusual ethnic name, or even a made-up pseudo-ethnic name, and a stupid name. “A-million” is a stupid name. “JerMajesty” is a stupid name. “Pilot Inspektor” is a stupid name. “Moxie Crimefighter” is a stupid name (though “Moxie” by itself is kinda cool, IMO.) If, as a parent, you choose to give your child a stupid name, you have to accept that some people are going to call it what it is. It’s sort of like how you have the right (in the US, at least) to make racist or misogynistic statements, but you don’t have the right for the people around you not to call you an asshat if you do.
I make no apology for thinking the names I mentioned above are all stupid names, and reacting appropriately (though in the latter three cases, knowing who gave those names to their kids, I’m laughing far more at the arrogance of the parent than at the poor kid who’s stuck with the name. It’s not their fault).
And I gotta admit, some of those kids end up owning those names. Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa somehow managed to make extremely stupid names cool (even if only for themselves).
Maybe the trick, if you’re gonna give your kid a “kre8iv” name, is to give them a normal middle name or a name that can easily be shortened to a normal name, to give the kid a choice about whether they want to be unusual or fit in.
Ethic names are a subset of unusual names, they are unusual because they lack familiarity for the culture group. I don’t particularly laugh at or make fun of ethnic names, and do my best to pronounce them reasonably correct. I will admit that I probably wouldn’t get Chaya right no matter how I try, so you’re gonna get “Haya” or “Chaya” depending on which you tell me you prefer, but you won’t get a glottal fricative. Not because I don’t care to try, but because it’s too awkward.
I teach a class that involves numerous kids, so I see a fair sampling of names, including a share of ethnic ones. I do my best to get spellings and pronunciations right, and if they correct me I try to comply, and if I am unsure I ask for clarification.
There are a number of names in English that have generic short form nicknames. I assume this is true in other languages - it is for Russian. Unfortunately, people assume if you have one of these long names, you will go by and accept the nickname forms. And conversely, if you are named “Danny”, they will assume that is a nickname and your formal name is actually “Daniel”. I know some folks where this isn’t true.
It sucks, and it’s the reason my parents explicitly chose names for me and my siblings that did not have standard expected short forms. Primarily because my dad suffered through it, and my mom might have had some of it as well.
You have to find your comfort level for effort at correcting other people for screwing up your name. My name has the letter sequence “ei” that can also be spelled “ie”. A number of people aren’t sure or can’t keep it straight or know someone else spelling it the opposite way. I often let it go, occasionally correct it merely for clarity.
Moon Unit did it by dropping the second part, but that still sounds a bit hippy.
Swedish has standard nicknames for short names that are longer than the original. Now that’s weird.
Hans becomes Hasse.
Lars becomes Lasse.
Karl becomes Kalle.
Pär/Per becomes Pelle.
You get the idea.
The only one I can think of off-hand that shortens it is Torbjörn becoming Tobbe. Oh and as I expect quite a few here are not aware of the pronunciation rules, all those nicknames are two syllables.
Would that be a kind of diminution, like “ly/li” is in English?
Amelia becomes Amy
Emelia becomes Emily or Emmy
Millicent becomes Millie
Daniel becomes Danny
William becomes Billy
Alison becomes Ali
She’ll have her own idea of what’s “weird” but it won’t be what I think is weird.
Also, with such an ethnically and racially diverse group of classmates (to the point where the white kids are only a quarter of the class) she’s got no issues whatsoever with racial or cultural differences.
Maybe (I’m not expert enough to make the call), but the interesting thing is that it makes the names longer, both in letters and syllables. None of your examples do.
ETA:
According to both the English and Swedish Wikipedia pages it isn’t.
Did you read the paragraph I quoted that explained that English usually truncates, but other languages don’t necessarily truncate? Some add syllables, and it gave an example from Latin.
According to this page, those are diminutives.
Diminutives aren’t necessarily about making the names shorter, they’re denoting littleness of the appended person, i.e. they’re a kid.
This page states that Swedish is like English in that they append the “ee” sound to the end.
Speculating…
Hans and Lars have the trailing sound the “s”, so the s is used to make the add on “ee” sound. Why do they drop the letter leading in? It’s a Swedish thing?
Similarly, Karl and Per have the last sound formed into an l. I think this may play into the difference in how the “r” is pronounced in other places versus America. In American English (not certain about Britain), the “r” is a bunched tongue r. To make the sound, you scrunch the tip of the tongue back. Other languages pronounce r with the tip pointed toward the alveolar ridge, i.e. the ridge inside the mouth behind the upper teeth.
Here’s the thing I have observed: in English, we use the alveolar tap when pronouncing “d” or “t” like in “ladder” or “latter”. Those two sound the same because we shortcut the middle consonants with an alveolar tap - a rapid tap of that ridge with the tongue - instead of fully forming and vocalizing the letter d or t.
Other languages use alveolar taps for r or l sounds as well. That’s why, for example, someone pronouncing “Perez” with a Spanish accent says it very differently than I would as a native English speaker. It actually sounds more like “Pelez” or “Petez” to me.
(Incidentally, I think this may play a role in why Chinese speakers have trouble distinguishing r and l sounds. Not only does Chinese not have these sounds, but many pronunciations of r with the forward rolled tongue form sound more similar to l, especially when done fast with alveolar taps and such.)
Also may be related to the non-rhotic approach to “ar” vowels.