So do it!
In Michigan, you use
this form. You must file this with the local Clerk of Court and pay a filing fee; that’s usually $25-$35. Generally the Judge just approves it without any questions. If you want a new Birth Certificate, Drivers License, etc. with your new name, you will have to pay the appropriate fees to get a new one issued.
It’s my sister’s name, and she actually doesn’t seem to get many mispronunciations - if people don’t know, they really don’t know and just ask. Of course, she gets plenty of misspelling…
It probably depends on where one lives, GorillaMan. Explaining it to my relatives alone would take quite some time. I do imagine it’s a spelling problem for a lot of people, though.
I go to an inner city high school, and I’ve been around kids with made-up names my entire life. There’s DuJuan, Tekiah, Thashe, LaTina, Shanelle, Demarco, Crecia, and Chuancherae, among others. (A girl who graduated a couple years ago was named Pookisha.) My name is Lindsay, which is a good name: not too common, but rare enough so that I’m the only one in a school of about 500 kids. My little brother is Peter (never Pete), which is about as common as Lindsay is.
My dad is named Ivan, which was a weird name when he was growing up, but he seems to be okay with it now.
If anyone wants, I’ll go through my yearbook and the contact list from my brother’s school, and post any particularly terrible or amusing names.
I know someone who insists he must name his son Lazarus (not that he’s about to reproduce or anything, barring diving intervention). I’ll tell you what I told him: first of all, Lazarus was dead, then brought back to life. He is described in John 11:39 as someone who “stinketh, having been dead four days.” Also, the name Lazarus has become [url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09182a.htm]associated with leprosy[/url ]. Leper hospitals and asylums are often called “lazaries.” Rotting corpses reanimated and leprosaria are not the two things I want people to think of first when they meet my son. YMMV.
I don’t really have a beef with new names: I have a beef with:
a) Names that are not pronounced like they are spelled
and
b) “New” names that are just like old names, but spelled differently.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had kids (I work mostly with kids) irritated with me because I pronounced their name “Brendon” when it’s “Brandon,” but spelled with an “e”?! (Actual example from last week)
And I’m not convinced that any originality is shown by names like Krystal - just bad spelling.
I feel bad for the kids because they have to put up with all the mispronunciations and misspelling by people who assume the name will be spelled/pronounced just like the other 500 Crystals they’ve encountered. The parents don’t have to put up with it at all.
Well I have a beef with people who assume that Irish names aren’t spelt as they’re pronounced - unlike English, it’s a phonetic language.
I don’t understand this. Caitlin would definitely not be pronounced “Kathleen” in English.
Didn’t say it was: http://www.standingstones.com/gaelpron.html
(You try putting a complete explanation of English pronunciation onto a single page!)
Cf. Baile Atha Cliath=buh-CLEE-uh
Dun Laoghaire=Dun Leh-ree
Laoghis=LEY-ish
Seosmh=SHO-siff
Amen=Oh-MY-in
And if English pronunciation is as intricate as GorillaMan says, I don’t see why people want to promote English as the international language…
When my daughter was born, we wanted to give her a name which was not too common, and not outlandish … and it had to suit a grown woman, with a nice shortened version for childhood.
So we called her Eloise, shortened to Ellie.
She’s now 14, and universally known as Elz. Ya never can tell … 
Slight quibble over ‘amen’ being a Latin import, but toher than that…
Well, it is a very difficult and intricate language. (Show me a quote that says it’s logical and straightforward.)
The reasons for being an or the international language are very different.
Once I get the rules down, I should be able to pronounce Irish names correctly every time. Imagine my expression when I said “Seosamh” aloud. It doesn’t look like “Joseph,” but it sounds almost exactly the same. Nifty. The pronunciation rules don’t change the way English does. That’s a great link, GorillaMan.
And then I’ll laugh myself sick. English is a minefield of a language at times.
Trendy names are dull. But I love unusual names. Maybe because my name is so plain. I’m neutral about unusual spellings; they don’t bother me.
Your gues is correct – the former Speaker of the House was originally named Newton McPherson after his father. After his parents separated, the boy stayed with his mother, who remarried. Her new husband, Robert Gingrich (whose Pennsylvania Dutch family, incidentally, pronounces the name’s “ch” as “k”), subsequently adopted Newton Leroy.
Well, I called them Jeremy and Jean Louise, and I guess there’s no trouble spelling those names.