# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 13
**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 6, 2018, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/241 "2018-12-06T07:17:10Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How is that a whoosh? Because the ridiculousness of what I said in that post went sailing over your head? ---
**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 6, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/242 "2018-12-06T15:08:04Z")
While visiting some rather affluent people I happened to meet, I was informed that we would shortly be joined by a friend of theirs, Overthere Doggy. (This is not his actual name, but suggests its tone and unusual nature.) I was grateful they told me his name before he arrived, so I was prepared and didn’t laugh or do a double take or make a stupid joke. He was (and I presume still is) a very nice guy, and fairly prominent in the community. I just looked him up and it turns out that his name has a long and historic family tradition. An ancestor of the same name was a U.S. Senator in the early 19th century. Several other relatives have borne the same name. I only met him briefly on that one occasion, so I don’t happen to know if he had a nickname used by friends and family (Bertie Wooster’s friend Claude Cattermole Potter-Pirbright was known as “Catsmeat”) or if he was teased or bullied as a kid, although it’s hard to imagine he could have escaped it. So here’s a case where an old and respected family name might lead to some of the same troubles for a child as a “silly” new name like Abcde. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/243 "2018-12-06T19:12:58Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 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. “Yeah, so? What am I supposed to do with this information?” ---
**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 6, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/244 "2018-12-06T19:20:31Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Because the ridiculousness of what I said in that post went sailing over your head? How am I supposed to know that you thought it was ridiculous? ---
**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, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/245 "2018-12-06T23:10:09Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > “Yeah, so? What am I supposed to do with this information?” I guess it was one of those things where you had to know these people. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/246 "2018-12-07T00:51:45Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > I’m sure a true Irish person is…amused / disgusted at us Murricans insisting on spelling it “kathleen” just to be cute. I sure hope they’re not. That ship has sailed…and sailed and sailed. I mean, American composer Thomas Westendorf wrote the classic American song “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” in 1875, almost a century and a half ago, and I’m sure the name’s American origins predate the song by quite a bit. I also don’t know of any evidence that Americans spelled it Kathleen “to be cute,” and if they did, well, that was a long long time ago. How many more centuries will it take, I wonder, until “a true Irish person” will acknowledge that the name is simply a standard American name? ---
**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 7, 2018, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/247 "2018-12-07T02:07:12Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > I sure hope they’re not. That ship has sailed…and sailed and sailed. I mean, American composer Thomas Westendorf wrote the classic American song “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” in 1875, almost a century and a half ago, and I’m sure the name’s American origins predate the song by quite a bit. I also don’t know of any evidence that Americans spelled it Kathleen “to be cute,” and if they did, well, that was a long long time ago. [Riley]One more time![/Riley] ---
**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 7, 2018, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/248 "2018-12-07T06:17:13Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Frank Zappa was the lead singer for Duran Duran? Only for 20 minutes in the 1960s. ---
**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 7, 2018, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/249 "2018-12-07T06:30:35Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How am I supposed to know that you thought it was ridiculous? Because this statement “ **Having read all 175 replies to the OP** ” - this statement “ **I’m amazed no one has pointed out that this is most definitely NOT an urban legend.** ” (note the underlined and bolded part) and then going on to say almost exactly what multiple other people had already stated: “ **Jasmine, not only did Frank Zappa name his oldest daughter Moon Unit, he is survived by three other children named Dweezil, Diva and Ahmet.** ” as if this was NEW information seems to me pretty sarcastic. I guess one of us needs our sarcasm detection abilities re-calibrated. Clearly I should have gone further over the top. Hopefully you understand this hilarious post is in fact a joke: > [@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. ---
**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 7, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308/250 "2018-12-07T19:35:27Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Because this statement > > “ **Having read all 175 replies to the OP** ” > > - this statement > > “ **I’m amazed no one has pointed out that this is most definitely NOT an urban legend.** ” > > (note the underlined and bolded part) and then going on to say almost exactly what multiple other people had already stated: > > “ **Jasmine, not only did Frank Zappa name his oldest daughter Moon Unit, he is survived by three other children named Dweezil, Diva and Ahmet.** ” > as if this was NEW information seems to me pretty sarcastic. > > I guess one of us needs our sarcasm detection abilities re-calibrated. Clearly I should have gone further over the top. > > Hopefully you understand this hilarious post is in fact a joke: yawn [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-peoples-funny-names-for-children/825308.md?page=12)