Since that one is the subject of a common urban legend, I think it calls for a cite.
All I can say is that Lewis Black swear’s it’s true.
As for cites, I was hoping for some examples. In most cases, you described types of names, without giving examples. I was also hoping for references, like a link to a webpage actually mentioning someone named Usmail or Usnavy.
As to unique names and spellings, a close relative of mine has named her kid Kaemon Alekzandr. She said she doesn’t want her kid to have any of the sterotypes associated with “normal” names. :smack: :smack: :smack:
-FrL-
The obligatory SNL site: Os-wee-pay.
If Chenequa and Shaniqua are related then the name may very well have been around for a long time.
From the official Chenequa, WI website, backed up by various other sites if you run a search on Chenequa and Potawatomi. It seems possible to me that the name could have been borrowed from Native Americans. Maybe not because of a fondness of pine, but simply because it’s a pleasing and–until recently–fairly unusual name.
Believe me, her kid will have to deal with a ton of stereotypes because of that name.
Sorry for not including lists of names. You could sit punching your keyboard and make your own. Here go some from people I personally know:
Mashups:
Ailicec (Cecilia backwards)
Ilce (Ilgora and Cesar)
Nelinda (Nelson and Melinda)
Girls with Y’s in their names:
Yanet (reads as Jeanette)
Yamilet
Yajayra (why have one Y when you can have two?)
Yuritzenaida (also a mashup and with room for 3 Y’s for enterprising parents)
Names with non-standard pronunciations:
Sajayra (standard read sah-HI-rah, parents insist on sah-JIE-rah)
Alecxavier (a mashup, unreadable in spanish, parents say it with no C)
Boys with A*iel:
Agdiel
Adniel
Yaniel
(they all piss me off because my name is Daniel and makes me turn when they are called)
As for links to the life and deed of the Washington’s and Usnavy’s, they are mostly limited to the police blotter of regional newspapers, I am afraid.
There is a book by a Puerto Rican author (Pedro Juan Soto) named “Usmail” about a woman who names her kid so as she waits for letters from the father (I believe, my wife gave it to my dad before I got the chance to read it, so all I have are their conversations and spoilers). You know a name has gone mainstream when it becomes the title of a book.
Usmail, btw, is read ooze-mah-EEL
My friend’s mother, who is a delivery nurse (or whatever you call them), also swears it’s true. However, the more I hear this story, the more I assume his mother is just relaying a story she heard circulating around the hospital.
Really? Personally speaking, the name “Kaemon” is entirely new to me, and it doesn’t seem to follow any pattern of “those people’s names” that I am aware of, so I don’t know of any relevant stereotypes.
Could it have originated as a variant of Ismail?
Although it’s fallen out of favor (thank goodness), those zany Brits once inflicted “Beauchamp” and “Chalmondeley” as names upon their offspring: an unkindness beyond the pale, IMO.
One would hope 
From the Texas birth index:
Shaniqua Renee Johnson, born 15 July 1966, Jefferson County, Texas. Parents: Harold Lee Johnson, Lenora Anderson.
Then there’s always 4real: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/21/name.child.ap/index.html
In a (fictional) related development to Elendil’s Heir cite about ‘4real’, Charles Schultz introduced the character of ‘5’ in Peanuts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_(Peanuts)
I named my children normal Anglo names for the very reasons outlined in this thread: why should someone be saddled with a name that might be cute in childhood, but is horrible by adult standards? (Or vice-versa? Names like Bertha and Gladys are old women’s names, IMO. I can’t imagine a 6-year old girl named ‘Bertha’.)
Are you for real?
No, I am John, he is the one in the red shirt, over there.
Linky no worky.
Elian was also a made up name, but it’s very popular in Cuba now, I have two(!) cousins named Elian.
So that idea, of a character named “5,” including the backstory as to why it came to be that way and so on…
That’s kind of funny.
So did Peanuts used to be funny then?
-FrL-
I don’t know that I’d call it ‘made up’. It’s a somewhat common name in France (goes back to the middle-ages), though more common in the feminine Eliane. I always think it sounds too much like ‘alien’, but that’s another story.
We had a wave of American ‘soap-opera names’ over here a few years back - French kids called Brandon and Tiffany (US spelling) and so forth. There’s a French comic, Elie Semoun who does a routine with a girl called Kevina.
Hm. There are a lot of Mormons in Alberta, too. This may explain one of the more truly horrendous names I found in the Alberta baby names register for 2006: “Fredvieve.”
I have seen a number of innovative spellings of French names in Québec, along the lines of “Véronik” for Véronique and the like. There also seems to be a peculiar trend for English names: “William” was the most popular boy’s name in Quebec last year. They haven’t quite reached the excesses of Britnee and Maddysin, though; most of the French-named young people I know spell their names conventionally.
Also considering the other possible allusion for “Regan” as a girl’s name. (Not too many young ladies running around named “Goneril,” I notice.)
As does Quebec - we don’t have a list, but the registrar of civil status has veto power over obviously idiotic name (like the Macarthur winners who tried to name their kid “Spatule” (cooking spatula or spoonbill bird) a few years ago).
I thought it was…humorous enough to own several books, but it wasn’t gut-busting hilarious.
Remember also, that Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist was named Regan.