# 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:** 12
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/221 "2018-12-04T20:52:31Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > OK, I’m still a newbie here. Someday I’ll learn. It’s part of the joke on Dope memes. Duran Duran’s song Rio is one of those, so he was tying that in to Frank Zappa, the rock musician. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/222 "2018-12-04T21:42:30Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > [Change in Popularity](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/rankchange.html) > > Just searching on names with “den” in them: > Kaiden > Kayden > Cayden > Jayden > Aaden > Rayden > Raiden > Brenden > Holden (OK, that one is at least different from the others…) > Eden (male and female) > > Khaleesi did rank pretty well (Shame GMM doesn’t get royalties from that!) > > Then there’s the ever popular trick of unusual spellings (ee vs ie vs iegh) and/or substituting Y for I (or vice versa): > Jurnee > Hailee/Haylee/Hayley > Charlee/Charley/Charlie > Harlee/Harley > Brynlee > Bailee > Rylee > Zaylee > Kynlee > Zoie > > I’m stunned at how many of these variants make it into the top 1000 (Jurnee and Zoie somehow really boggle me). > > You can actually download lists of names from SSAm at [Popular Baby Names](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html). Some of the rarer ones are very oddbal spellings like Abbiegayle vs Abiageal, Amilea vs Amileah vs Ameilya, and so on (There are also 5 or so girls named Caleesi). > > Lots of attempts to get painfully “cute” with the spelling - I’m rather surprised and dismayed at the 6 Peightyns out there (though Peytynn isn’t much better). > > Aliveah and Aliceson are going to to have a great deal of fun making sure their names are spelled right. > > Some “normally spelled” names surprised me with their rarity: Awesome, Amabel, and Bronwen and Jet. > > Lots of variants on the Braden / Cayden sort of names there as well. My (step)son’s name is Zayden. ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/223 "2018-12-04T22:06:00Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > Haven’t read the whole thread, but this is an issue that dates back to at least the 1960s. For example, 9 months after an incident that happened once, in 1967, for 20 minutes, Duran Duran lead singer Frank Zappa named his daughter “1920s-style Death-Ray” (the hyphens are silent). There is an urban legend that she goes by “Ray” for short - actually she legally changed it to “Hi, Opal!” shortly after age 21, after her first two submissions (“I burning your dog” and “Pan-fried semen”) were rejected. ::golf clap:: ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/224 "2018-12-05T00:00:12Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > …English-speakers have learned rules for what a combination of letters should, generally, sound like. “Siobhan”… well, a lot of words I’ve learned have “sio” being pronounced “shuh” like “dissension” and “ascension”. “bh” being pronounced as “v” isn’t anything an American-educated person would expect. “Aoife”… I’d expect to be something like “Ay-oh-eef” or maybe “Ow-eef”. The “Ao” at the beginning just seems to be a waste of printer’s ink. I listened to the Outlander books via Audible and one character was named “Lira”; it was years before I saw it in print as “Laoghire”. I’d have pronounced it “Low-geer” had I not heard it first. It’s hard for me to see how “aogh” affects the pronunciation at all. > > But someone educated in Scottish or Irish orthogrophy would likely look at those and scratch their heads and say “of course it’s pronounced Lira, what’s your effing problem?”. … I heard or read at some point that the not-really-phonetic spellings of Irish names was an intentional attempt to annoy the English, in retaliation for them always invading Ireland and such. Looking for verification or rebuttal online, I found another set of names: > [@](#): > > Irish Girl Names: > > Afric. Say: Africk. Though it sounds like it should mean Africa, it doesn’t. … > Aibreann. April, Avril | Say: av-rawn. … > Aideen. Say: ay-deen. … > Ailbe. Alva | Say: al-vah. … > Aileen. Say: ay-leen. … > Ailis Eilis. Alice, Elizabeth | Say: ay-lish. … > Alannah. Alana | Say: ah-lan-ah. … > Aoibheann. Eavan | Say: eve-een. > **[Traditional Irish Girls' Names: A-C](https://www.dochara.com/the-irish/first-names/traditional-irish-girls-names-a-c/)** > > Some of the most popular old Irish Celtic and Gaelic names for Girls, from Afric to Colleen, along with notes about their origin and history. Story of a Name: Aoife and the Children of Lir, doomed to spend 900 years as swans. Didn’t see any discussion of the ‘spelling doesn’t match pronunciation deliberately to annoy’ theory in my search results, but then my search terms could have been ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/225 "2018-12-05T00:17:44Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I heard or read at some point that the not-really-phonetic spellings of Irish names was an intentional attempt to annoy the English, in retaliation for them always invading Ireland and such. This is nonsense, and pretty ethnocentric nonsense at that. The spelling of Irish predates the Norman invasion of Ireland by centuries. True, the spelling was a bit in flux, and true, there are a few more recent systems (such as all the Hs instead of dots or nothing at all). There was also a spelling reform in the 20th century. But Modern Irish spelling is a direct descendant of Old Irish spelling. It’s like English. You write “boat” and you never think about why you stick a useless A in the word, but then you learn the Old English was “bāt,” no O. Or you write “knight,” knowing that we no longer pronounce a bunch of the letters, but you’re used to them and they’re historically present and they help distinguish homonyms. But when another language does the same sorts of things, it seems crazy and weird. So you assume it’s all about you, but it’s not—it’s just about change over time and the fact that the Latin alphabet isn’t really well-suited to Irish from the get-go. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/226 "2018-12-05T00:23:39Z")
Talk of Celtic spelling reminds me that I recently explained that “Loughery” is pronounced with a K, at least in some cases. ---
**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 5, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/227 "2018-12-05T02:28:00Z")
I personally know a poor child named Jonathan whose name is pronounced “Joe Nathan”. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/228 "2018-12-05T05:23:50Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Now, writing Polish using the English alphabet is another thing entirely. I swear they throw all those extra consonants in there as a joke, just to laugh at us Westerners. I can’t imagine how anyone knowing “English” spelling could possibly have heard the sound “Shuh” and decided to spell it “Krzy” (as in former Duke coach Krzyszewski, pronounced “ShuhSHEFsky”). Well, you’d be surprised. Polish spelling may look daunting because of unfamiliarity, but it’s actually a very reliable guide to pronunciation. You just have to learn a few rules. Once you know the orthographic rules, you’ll be able to pronounce any Polish word right off the bat, because of all written languages Polish spelling is one of the best matched to pronunciation in the world. (Tibetan and Burmese are the worst.) Some of this is learning to distinguish between sounds that aren’t distinguished in English. For example, Polish has two different kinds of sh sounds and two different kinds of zh, articulated in different places in the mouth. The spelling has to account for that. Once you learn that the digraph “rz” always stands for a **r** etroflex **z** h phoneme, it suddenly becomes a lot easier. Another rule is that voiced consonants are changed to unvoiced when adjacent to an unvoiced consonant. The K in Krzyszewski is unvoiced, so the zh sound of “rz” changes to sh. Likewise, the voiced sound of /v/ (spelled w) is adjacent to unvoiced s, so it changes to /f/. It doesn’t help understanding when Americans drop the initial /k/ out of an impulse to reduce unfamiliar initial consonant clusters. The Polish pronunciation of Krzyszewski would be [[kʂɨʂɛfski]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Polish). A huge advantage in learning Polish is that the stress always goes on the penultimate syllable. That’s a breeze compared to Russian, where the stress has to be specially memorized for each word, can change within the same word with declensions, and the placement of stress alters the actual vowel sounds. In Polish the vowels always have the same sound. Even when a vowel sound is altered by nasalization in a declension, they write that so you never have to guess how to pronounce Polish. I like the sound of Polish, too, and I think it’s one of the more pleasant-sounding Slavic languages. Its crystal-clear vowels help a lot. Russian vowels are muddy by comparison. ---
**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 5, 2018, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/229 "2018-12-05T06:15:04Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > > [@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. > > Am I the only one who thinks this is sarcasm? Nope. ---
**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 5, 2018, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/230 "2018-12-05T10:55:37Z")
If I recall correctly, Frank Zappa named a few of his kids something odd…my memory is a little hazy…Henry? Larry? Moon Unit? mmm ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/231 "2018-12-05T14:18:45Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Do they also never leave the house? Outside of family field trips/shopping excursions, and some tightly controlled church-based sporting events, not really. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/232 "2018-12-05T17:16:50Z")
I haven’t read the whole thread, but I heard that Frank Zappa and Michael Jackson had a love child named… : screeching halt : > [@jz78817](#): > > white parents have just now run out of variations on Aiden, Jaden, Jayden, Braden, Braeden, Bryson, Graydon, Grayson, Kaden, Kayden, etc. Damn, you guys are harsh! To the OP, I can see a momentary giggle when the employee first discovered the child’s name. The laughing and pointing with other employees was too much, though. And posting the picture was beyond the pale. Even government agencies like the Social Security Administration won’t add names with fewer than 5 occurrences in any given state to their downloadable database because it could be used to personally identify an individual. ---
**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 5, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/233 "2018-12-05T18:45:53Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I heard or read at some point that the not-really-phonetic spellings of Irish names was an intentional attempt to annoy the English, in retaliation for them always invading Ireland and such. > > Looking for verification or rebuttal online, I found another set of names: > > [Traditional Irish Girls' Names: A-C](https://www.dochara.com/the-irish/first-names/traditional-irish-girls-names-a-c/) > > Didn’t see any discussion of the ‘spelling doesn’t match pronunciation deliberately to annoy’ theory in my search results, but then my search terms could have been ineffective. Interesting. The list you posted bears out the pronunciation of “Siobhan” as “shuVawn”, as every instance of ‘b’ seems to be pronounced ‘v’. I’m sure a true Irish person is horrified at “Caitlin” being pronounced “kate lin”, when it’s quite clear that it should be “cat LEEN” - and also amused / disgusted at us Murricans insisting on spelling it “kathleen” just to be cute. ---
**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 5, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/234 "2018-12-05T19:02:06Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Charles Rocket (originally Claverie) was an SNL cast member, briefly, in the early 80s. > If this [blog](http://inmemoryofcharlierocket.blogspot.com/2008/05/rediscovering-man-called-charlie.html) has any legitimacy, he had a nasty upbringing, with his parents calling him JimLinkCharlie. His brothers were Jim and Link, and they too were called the same combined name. Apparently, their parents had this thing about not wanting them to have identities, or something. The way buddy so self-indulgently repeats himself in his blog, though, makes me wonder his about credibility. > > Still think George Foreman’s an asshole. Without reading the blog, calling them JimLinkCharlie might simply have been a result of any parent’s confusion over which kid to yell at. “You! Yeah, you, John, uh, Mary, uh, George”. (without the intervening “uh”). (I got around that by referring to both my kinds as “Sweetie”). Obviously if it was a consistent thing and truly meant to destroy identities, that’s horrible :(. An acquaintance had a husband named, let’s say, John Paul Jones. When their first son was born, they didn’t want a Junior, so they named him John Thomas Jones. Then they decided they wanteda Junior afer all, so #2 was named “John Paul Jones”. IIRC, they referred to them by their middle names, but I’m sure it’s led to a LOT of confusion. ---
**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 5, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/235 "2018-12-05T19:13:50Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Without reading the blog, calling them JimLinkCharlie might simply have been a result of any parent’s confusion over which kid to yell at. “You! Yeah, you, John, uh, Mary, uh, George”. (without the intervening “uh”). (I got around that by referring to both my kinds as “Sweetie”). > > Obviously if it was a consistent thing and truly meant to destroy identities, that’s horrible :(. … And reading the linked blog -no cute forgetfulness was at play - the parents were monsters :(. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/236 "2018-12-05T19:20:35Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Interesting. The list you posted bears out the pronunciation of “Siobhan” as “shuVawn”, as every instance of ‘b’ seems to be pronounced ‘v’. > > I’m sure a true Irish person is horrified at “Caitlin” being pronounced “kate lin”, when it’s quite clear that it should be “cat LEEN” - and also amused / disgusted at us Murricans insisting on spelling it “kathleen” just to be cute. In Irish, “B” is never pronounced as an English V. “BH” is.\* (Think of T vs TH in English, or S vs SH). \*Results not guaranteed. Your pronunciation may vary depending on dialect and whether broad or slender. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/237 "2018-12-05T19:43:38Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > [Change in Popularity](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/rankchange.html) > > Just searching on names with “den” in them: > Kaiden > Kayden > Cayden > Jayden > Aaden > Rayden > Raiden > Brenden > Holden (OK, that one is at least different from the others…) > Eden (male and female) > > Khaleesi did rank pretty well (Shame GMM doesn’t get royalties from that!) > > Then there’s the ever popular trick of unusual spellings (ee vs ie vs iegh) and/or substituting Y for I (or vice versa): > Jurnee > Hailee/Haylee/Hayley > Charlee/Charley/Charlie > Harlee/Harley > Brynlee > Bailee > Rylee > Zaylee > Kynlee > Zoie OMG, “Brandee” is what I wanted Kate and Willy to name their daughter (Charlotte), right down to the classic stripper spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/238 "2018-12-05T22:49:01Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Interesting. The list you posted bears out the pronunciation of “Siobhan” as “shuVawn”, as every instance of ‘b’ seems to be pronounced ‘v’. > > I’m sure a true Irish person is horrified at “Caitlin” being pronounced “kate lin”, when it’s quite clear that it should be “cat LEEN” - and also amused / disgusted at us Murricans insisting on spelling it “kathleen” just to be cute. I think Kathleen has been around long enough to be considered a variant. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/239 "2018-12-06T00:16:07Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > An acquaintance had a husband named, let’s say, John Paul Jones. When their first son was born, they didn’t want a Junior, so they named him John Thomas Jones. Then they decided they wanted a Junior afer all, so #2 was named “John Paul Jones”. IIRC, they referred to them by their middle names, but I’m sure it’s led to a LOT of confusion. I went to high school with the last few of a Catholic family with IIRC 11 kids, and all the girls were named Mary and were called by their middle names. The Fischer quintuplets followed the same format, and they too ended up having 11 children; however, the family I knew had them one at a time. To further confuse things, three of the girls were later found to be identical triplets. [http://www.quintland.com/fischer/](http://www.quintland.com/fischer/) The Mary in my class had a boyfriend all through high school, and after a while, there was a very persistent rumor that she had an abortion. My attitude about it, both then and now, was, “Yeah, so? What am I supposed to do with this information?” I’m posting it here because that boyfriend had one of the strangest Facebook pages I’ve ever seen. He’s a bodybuilder, in the master class now because of our ages (mid 50s) and most of the pictures were of him all oiled up and surrounded by bikini-clad sweet young thangs. However, it looked like he was in a relationship with another guy; none of the things he posted made much sense. When I knew him, he seemed like an intelligent and reasonable kid; who knows what happened in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/240 "2018-12-06T00:33:59Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I think Kathleen has been around long enough to be considered a variant. Apparently Caitlín (note the nice accent indicating correct pronunciation!) is just one (the Irish one) of the hundreds of variants of Catherine/Katherine/Aikaterina/… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308.md?page=13)