[QUOTE=Greg Charles;17674969
There’s a football announcer named Ian Eagle, but he pronounces it Eye-An. I kept thinking it should be “I’m An Eagle”, which is at least grammatical. What does he do if he’s announcing a Philadelphia game?
[/QUOTE]
I grew up with a kid named Ian, which he pronounced “Yahn”.
And I’ve told this story before, but I was a student teacher at a school once that used to have a girl, last name Salt, first name Pepper.
What’s in a name?
Declension. Putting it in terms of a feature we have in English, it’s like conjugation for nouns.
:smack: Even worse.
Semi?!
Before our daughter was born we used to plague our parents with claims that we were thinking of naming the kid one of the following:
Mizithra Brie (everyone likes cheese, right?)
Rotifer Stentor (think back to your Biology 101 class)
If a boy - Cholmondeley Featherstonehaugh (Chum-lee Fan-shaw)
She’s all grown-up now but we still kid her about being Lil’ Rotifer sometimes.
My parents best friends had two daughters: Hope and Joy. I felt so sorry for them. Even as a child, I felt like they were somehow being set up for disappointment in life.
I’m picturing a freakishly large baby. Like 32 pounds at birth. Mouth full of teeth at birth, as well. Semi.
ETA: facial hair. Baby’s got a moderate beard and 'stache at birth.
He must be jealous of all the "Rafe"s (spelled Ralph).
And ditto on the pretell, but my mother had a student in the 1980s named Sunday Monday.
Protecting kids from asshole parents.
Just wait till your father gets home.
My mother spent years as an OB nurse. She swears every parent who used that name would declare the baby’s name was “Neveah,its heaven backwards.”
Mom began to wonder if they all felt the need to explain how clever and original they were, or if Neveahitsheavenbackwards was becoming the newest trendy name.
Caitlin and its variations were popular for a while. I feel sure that most of those parents didn’t know that in the old country it’s pronounced kat-LEEN. If they knew, they might have named all those girls Kathleen.
A couple we knew from college announced that their baby daughter Cami. The mother-to-be got downright peeved when I said that sounded good, and “you don’t have to be black to make up names for your kids.” Later, I found out that Cami is not a new name, and girls in my parents’ generation wore it.
I was among the leading edge of those who thought it was a fine, old, slightly forgotten Celtic name and chose it in 1989. If I Had Only Known.
One of my sources was a professor specializing in Irish, Gaelic and Welsh, who said the correct original pronunciation was “kaishLEEN,” but not to bother because everyone would say “Geshundheit.”
As I’ve said, we choose fine old traditional first names but go a little wild on middle names. I’d bet there isn’t another person with my daughter’s two given names, no matter how common her first name got… 
Cartinly Camille and Camilla have been around for a long while.
Our neighbors named their little girl Sawyer. I’m always tempted to ask them if they plan on having a boy named Cobbler, or possibly Programmer.
Do you know the McDonald’s? Probably not, but I went to school with Colleen, whose sisters (I think) were Janine, Maureen, and Darlene. Their brother was James.
My nephew went to school with Xiounamey. I think I’m spelling that right. Pronounced like “tsunami.”
…and I used to work with a Jesus who was nicknamed Zeus. Makes sense in pronunciation. “Hey, Zeus!”
The newest backwards name I have heard recently is “Legna.” “It’s angel spelled backwards!” I assume to go along with Nevaeh. I believe it’s supposed to be pronounced “Lehn-ya,” Italian-style, but on first glance looks like “Legg-nuh” which sounds too close to “smegma” for my liking.
There’s a Briaunnah in my daughter’s preschool.
I think Pepper is a great name, especially for a girl. Or a dog. Or a scooter.
Jeez, what is the problem with just naming the kid Angel? Or Angela? You want them to be the opposite of an angel? Which people don’t become anyway – they become saints. I guess Tnias was too hard to pronounce?! “It’s Tee-nigh-ass, duh!”
ETA: Ooo, it could be pronounced to rhyme with genius! This could work.