# White People's Funny Names for Children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 30, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308 "2018-11-30T02:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/181 "2018-12-02T04:52:49Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Having read all 175 replies to the OP I must say I’m amazed no one has pointed out that this is most definitely NOT an urban legend. > > **Jasmine** , not only did Frank Zappa name his oldest daughter Moon Unit, he is survived by three other children named Dweezil, Diva and Ahmet. When I was a kid and up through at least my late teens (I’m 38) all of those kids were on TV shows or somewhere in the media/pop culture radar. Moon was on the “Valley Girl” song. They were all MTV and tv host personalities. Dweezil and Moon Unit had a CBS sitcom based on their real life family when I was around 10. My dad explained who they were. I remember Ahmet and Dweezil hosting a cable show in the late 90s. So I am familiar with all of them. Dweezil has kept up with music, which has resulted in some intra-family legal issues over the use of the Zappa name. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/182 "2018-12-02T13:30:53Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > At least three of us have pointed out that this is not an urban legend. Whoooooosh ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/183 "2018-12-02T15:31:19Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > yes, that’s all well and good if you’ve got the talent to make it in the entertainment sector, but if you don’t, then you’re probably gonna be “Dweezil the midnight shift 7-11 clerk.” I know, right? People who might work such a job as midnight shift 7-11 clerk are human garbage. I’m so glad we’re better than them. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/184 "2018-12-02T19:54:17Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Whoooooosh How is that a whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/185 "2018-12-03T00:48:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Raiden is just abysmally stupid. It’s a character name from the “Mortal Kombat” video game series from 20-something years ago. > > Still not as dumb though, as those fools who name their daughters “Khaleesi” Naming them Daenerys would be dumb, but Khaleesi is a title, and not even a particularly powerful one at that, as the Khal was the powerful one among the Dothraki. > > But yeah, put me in the camp that says that naming your child a reasonably not weird name is one of your parental duties. That’s not to say that it can’t be unique or spelled creatively, although I’m not a big fan. But it does extend to not naming your kid Asswipe (“Oz-weep-ae”- from a SNL skit) Purexo (a name my college roommate swears a high school classmate had) or Abcde. Those names are going to do little other than make your kid the butt of jokes and confuse people. Re Khaleesi: Yes, it’s silly - but have you ever met anyone named Earl, Duke or Major? I’ve met several people whose first name is Earl, and one named Major. Then there’s Rex (which I always associated with dogs as we had one by that name when growing up), which means King, and Regina which means queen. Khaleesi is no different from those, concept-wise. An ill-educated (or just unfamiliar with English) immigrant naming a child “Vagina” or similar is unfortunate. Someone naming their kid “Abcde”, well… I’m sorry, but there’s no reason to give a kid a name like that except as a very sick joke. (to be clear though, that Southwest employee was insanely over the line and I hope he or she is denied unemployment, due to being fired for cause). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/186 "2018-12-03T02:17:00Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > An ill-educated (or just unfamiliar with English) immigrant naming a child “Vagina” or similar is unfortunate. What’s unfortunate is people believing a racist joke. [Here’s an interesting series on baby name jokes](http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-one): > [@](#): > > Why does it matter? We tell funny stories all the time without believing them. (Does anybody really think that a priest, a rabbi and a chicken walked into a bar?) I believe it matters in the case of urban legend names because they’re not merely humor…and they’re not random. They exist in a complex social setting, and they serve a subtle and consequential purpose. They are proxies for talking about race. > > I am not saying that telling the story of Le-a, or Lemonjello and Oranjello, or Male and Female (that’s MAH-lay and feh-MAH-lay, of course) makes you a racist. People of every color and background repeat the stories because they’re clever and amusing. What I am saying is that as a group, the legend names have a context and meaning we shouldn’t ignore. Or to put it another way, I haven’t mentioned a word about Ledasha’s race, but didn’t you draw assumptions about it? And aren’t those assumptions a key part of the story? [The author lays it on the line in part two](http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-two), beginning with a different spin on the story: > [@](#): > > A college student comes home for the summer and her shocked parents see that she’s obviously pregnant. She tells them that she’s determined to finish school on time and that all of her sorority sisters have promised to help her with the baby. Sure enough, come September she’s back on campus with her baby son in her arms: little Kegger, named for the place he was conceived. … and continuing: > [@](#): > > The standard length for an American boy’s name is two syllables. By my calculations three-fifths of all boys are now given two-syllable names, and the percentage of white boys is even higher. Yet among all those hundreds of two-syllable white names from Aaron to Zander you won’t find a single name with stress on the second syllable. That rhythm is common enough among contemporary black names, as well as in other languages like Arabic. Some more traditional English men’s names have second-syllable stress too, but if you think of one chances are you’ll find it has dropped out of use among whites while maintaining some currency in black families. Try Jerome, Maurice and Bernard. (That’s maw-REECE and ber-NAHRD. As the front-stressed MOHR-iss and BERN-erd, they’re solidly white.) > > This brings us back around to Ledasha. It’s a hair’s breadth from the popular black name Latasha, and echoes a whole generation of Leshondas, Lakishas and more. Check out the NameVoyager graph of LAT- names for a snapshot. Not only does the name Ledasha identify the mom as black, but it works a sly bit of guilt by association. It positions its silliness right in the middle of a standard black naming style – in fact, one version of the story claims La-a is “one of the most popular names in Detroit.” The story is designed to be “all too plausible,” playing off what we already believe. The implication is that the whole style of names is equally suspect. That’s a common technique of derision, as we’ll see in part 3… [Part three is also the final part](http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-three-of-three): > [@](#): > > Consider the language of the Ledasha tale. Google counts 100,000 results for the punchline “dash don’t be silent.” (For the linguistically inclined, that’s the “habitual be,” a distinctive syntactic feature of African American Vernacular English.) You’ll also find thousands of similar hits for “dash ain’t silent.” But when you search for the Standard English version “dash isn’t silent” you mostly find explanations in the storyteller’s voice, not quotes from Ledasha’s mother. The mother’s vernacular is intrinsic to the story. > > For some perspective on this, let’s take a trip back in time. Urban legend resource [Snopes.com](http://Snopes.com), in their excellent review of name tales, unearthed a relevant item from a 1917 book of humor. Please excuse the period vocabulary: > > A young woman in Central Park overheard an old negress call to a pickaninny: “Come heah, Exy, Exy!” > > “Excuse me, but that’s a queer name for a baby, aunty?” > > “Dat ain’t her full name,” explained the old woman with pride; “dat’s jes’ de pet name I calls for short. Dat child got a mighty grand name. Her ma picked it out in a medicine book — yessum, de child’s full name is Eczema.” Yeah, that one’s a bit too… _obvious_… to be told unaltered these days. I mean, aside from “negress” and “pickaninny” though the latter wouldn’t ring any bells anyway. So, to conclude: > [@](#): > > The blithe racism makes us cringe today, but every element of this joke is echoed in modern name tales. The proud, earnest ignorance, the desire to aggrandize, and the vernacular speech are all familiar. Even the misreading of medical jargon remains a popular touch; just swap out eczema for an STD to give it a more contemporary punch. > > The big difference between the Eczema tale and today’s is that the 1917 teller had no qualms about identifying the child’s race as the central point. The many widely circulated versions of Ledasha, laden with racial signals as they may be, never come out and say it. Tellers rely on implicit cues so that the story, on the surface, is just about a funny name. ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/187 "2018-12-03T09:00:29Z")
Probably 30 or 40 years ago I read one of those “Humor in Uniform” items in Reader’s Digest about a man in the military named R.B. Jones. He had only initials, rather like Harry S Truman’s middle “name”. Anyway, it was a chronic problem during his initial days in the military, so he took to filling in forms First Name: R only Middle Name: B only Last Name: Jones. Throughout his enlistment he received paychecks made out to Ronly Bonly Jones. We’ve named several pets Ronly Bonly in memory of this possibly non-existent person… ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/188 "2018-12-03T10:56:13Z")
> [@as\_u\_wish](#): > > Probably 30 or 40 years ago I read one of those “Humor in Uniform” items in Reader’s Digest about a man in the military named R.B. Jones. He had only initials, rather like Harry S Truman’s middle “name”. Anyway, it was a chronic problem during his initial days in the military, so he took to filling in forms First Name: R only Middle Name: B only Last Name: Jones. Throughout his enlistment he received paychecks made out to Ronly Bonly Jones. > > We’ve named several pets Ronly Bonly in memory of this possibly non-existent person… I think he was in Korea with B.J. Hunnicutt. mmm ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/189 "2018-12-03T13:35:39Z")
You mean it isn’t Bee Jay Hunnicutt??? Early this morning I did a search on Ronly Bonly and found “him” on Snopes. This was actually in a 1958 Reader’s Digest. “Suspected” as urban legend. But it really was nice to have confirmation that I did read it somewhere, which we know makes it true. ---
**Author:** ![PackerMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@PackerMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PackerMan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/190 "2018-12-03T14:10:40Z")
As difficult as it has been for Abcde, her brother Hijk (pronounced Hijack), has it much worse. He isn’t able to fly at all. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/191 "2018-12-03T14:42:32Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I read somewhere that the old rocker, Frank Zappa, named his daughter “Moon Unit”. Sounds like that may be just an urban legend, though. Here you find an \interview\ with her and her father. She is happy with her name, as she states with a sense of humour wothy of her father’s. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/192 "2018-12-03T15:09:50Z")
> [@Weedy](#): > > I know a kid called Juan, pronounced Joo-Un. I don’t know how his parents came up with that. I am not sure you are serious, but just in case: Juan is Spanish and means John. Juana is the female version of that same name. Juanita is the female diminutive, like Johnny, but in female. In Spain people get two family names, the first is the father’s first family name, the second the mother’s first family name. (Theoretically you get infinite names, the third being the father’s second, the fourth the mother’s second and so on, but I disgress). I had a boy in my school whose name was Jesús Caído de la Cruz. Guess you have to understand Spanish to know how hilarious this was. But Jesús is a very common name in Spain, only in that combination… I don’t know what the parents were thinking of. Of course it is all a cultural thing, remember Billy Wilder’s “One, Two, Three”? Where the American woman asks the German woman what her name is? “Klotilde”, she replies. “I will call call you Klo then!” “Please call me Tilde!” ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/193 "2018-12-03T15:17:16Z")
In the early seventies, I was printing the enrollment list for my urban junior college. Had to stand by the pin drive printer in case the perfs tore out - bored, so was reading the names of the students (s-l-o-w printer) and hit stop on an unusual name. My boss raised his eyebrows; Latrina was a new one on him, as well. Were the seventies the dawn of the made-up name? Regarding some of the other names mentioned - have a cousin named Leslie, who would be in her early sixties, now. And my favorite uncle (the favorite family personality, in fact) was named Maurice, accent on the second syllable. Unique name in a huge family of standard names. Man, I wanted that name. Worked in a marina where was built a huge sportfisherman for a rich guy who had a marlin obsession - the boat was named the Snarlin’ Marlin; rumor had it that he named his son Marlin. Near me, buried in a nearly defunct churchyard, is a woman whose first name is Narozzo. She was born in 1860, and I can find barely a hint of an origin for that name. Perhaps made-up names have always been with us. Any other family anecdotes, anyone? Dan ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/194 "2018-12-03T15:24:31Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > Her little sister is called Ella Menopy. Congratulations, you made me wheeze at the kitchen table. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/195 "2018-12-03T15:34:24Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I have a big problem with the logic of not naming your kid something unusual because they will be bullied. And that is simply this: **Bullies don’t need a funny name or anything else to bully you.** Bullies, in my experience, look for people who are good targets first, and then come up with how they are going to make fun of them. > > Do we have any evidence that bullying of kids with unusual names is more common than so-called “normal” names? Or is it just confirmation bias since we remember the people who did have unusual names were bullied? Kids? Right now I have two coworkers who never miss a chance to make jokes based on my name, since they discovered it means Light (as in “what lets us see”, not “the opposite of heavy”). One of them does it in a nice way (his first reaction was “hey, mine means ‘Sun’, cool! Or rather, hot!”), the other one’s reaction was… calling me Lightbulb. Congratulations, dude, I’m now 50 and you’ve just pushed the previous marker for that joke by 6 years. My name isn’t even particularly assholish, but there are names which do point out “this person has parents who are assholes”. That’s a huge marker for someone who will make a good bullying target, and in fact may already be abused at home. > [@Dandan](#): > > Perhaps made-up names have always been with us. Well, yes. Someone somewhere was the first Dan. Someone somewhere was the first Bob. Someone somewhere was the first Lee, or Li, or may not even have had a way to spell it. ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/196 "2018-12-03T15:36:10Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I read somewhere that the old rocker, Frank Zappa, named his daughter “Moon Unit”. Sounds like that may be just an urban legend, though. > **[Moon Zappa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Zappa)** > > Moon Unit Zappa (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress, singer, and author. She is the daughter of musician Frank Zappa. > Moon Zappa was born in New York City, the eldest child of Gail (née Sloatman) and musician Frank Zappa. She has three younger siblings: Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva. Zappa's father was of Sicilian, Greek-Arab, and French ancestry, and her mother was of German and Portuguese descent. Zappa attended Oakwood School in North Hollywood, California. > Zappa first came to public... ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/197 "2018-12-03T15:58:24Z")
I know a beach attendant in St Martin (Dawn Beach) who goes by the name Grey. His skin is the blackest skin could possibly be, leading many people to ask why his name is Grey. When asked, he whips off his sunglasses. _Whoa_ The most amazing grey eyes you’ve ever seen. People actually gasp. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/198 "2018-12-03T16:48:43Z")
We’ve probably beaten the business about Moon Unit and Dweezil to death, but in case anyone’s curious about why Frank Zappa’s third child is named Ahmet, it’s after [Ahmet Ertegun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Ertegun), co-founder and head of Atlantic Records. In addition to launching the recording careers of many artists, Ertegun also wrote the songs “Chains of Love,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “Mess Around,” which was recorded by Ray Charles (one of the musicians he discovered). ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/199 "2018-12-03T17:40:05Z")
I posted these in another thread some time back: I have a friend who taught second grade for a while, and she would write down some of the more unusual names for me. Among them: **Dazzilyn** , **Angeleyez** , **N’Gage** , **Klowiie** , **Trulee**. My favorite, though, was **Aiaia**. Yep. A-I-A-I-A. I guess you pronounce it like [this](https://youtu.be/Jx7SwtqEMyM). ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/200 "2018-12-03T18:47:32Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > We’ve probably beaten the business about Moon Unit and Dweezil to death, but in case anyone’s curious about why Frank Zappa’s third child is named Ahmet, it’s after [Ahmet Ertegun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Ertegun), co-founder and head of Atlantic Records. In addition to launching the recording careers of many artists, Ertegun also wrote the songs “Chains of Love,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “Mess Around,” which was recorded by Ray Charles (one of the musicians he discovered). Interesting! As I’ve mentioned before, my username was because we referred to our kids as “Dweezil” and “Moon Unit” respectively while under construction. We joke that we stopped at 2 because we couldn’t quite get our minds around “Ahmet” Jewishlastname :D. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308.md?page=11)