A friend of mine was going out with a guy called Simeon. They broke up, and I introduced her to my friend Quentin, who she went out with for a couple of years. Now she’s married to a guy called Crispin.
Zoltan! hehehehe 
I have a good friend who’s middle name is Zardoz.
That’s exactly what I was going to say Leif about naming your girl “Downy”.
The main character in my latest novel is named Phaidra. Lovely Gaelic name, IIRC.
My cousin named his daughter Shyanne. No, I’ve no problem with naming babies after places, but for all that’s good and holy, don’t spell it like that! I pity that child. I’ve also heard tell of a “Shianne.” Ick.
However, the spouse and I joke about naming a little girl Tajma. We’d also probably give her his last name (which I haven’t yet taken). It’s Hall.
Snicks
Dammit Oxy, ya beat me to it! 
Yeah, “Ciera” is a made up name. Sheesh, naming your kid after the vehicle choice of penny-pinching insurance company fleet managers. . .
Of course, my godson goes to school with a girl named Camry and one of my high school class mates (also female) was named Caprice Impala Belair. Guess her dad liked Chevrolets.
Zap!
Had a coworker once named Quasar…she was a total airhead.
One named Caressa…not cute, not sweet, not huggable
Had a customer last night named Marirhetta…
Girl at Taco Bell is Heavenlee…she is kinda grouchy
Another girl there is Precious…maybe to her mom
Woman who works for (I think) the lottery in a commercial last night, named Beneatha…Beneath a what?
And as a total aside, why do men stand for having their sons named after their wives’ sexual fantasies? Back in the 80’s when “L.A. Law” was on TV, a lot of little boys were named Corbin, after the actor Corbin Bernson (sp). I once asked an aquaintance why she chose the name, and she said she just thought C.B. was soooo cute. Amazing. When my (now) ex and I were picking names for our children, he specifically eliminated any names of ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-crushes. Said he didn’t want me thinking about that person everytime I called the kids in for dinner. Then we named our son James…which was the name of the guy I was dating when I met my husband…he was husband’s best friend, best man at our wedding. He said that was okay because we don’t call the boy-child Jim, and the friend was never called James. Male logic.
Green Bean’s link says my name sucks. pout I like it.
It also says that my sisters got the good names.
Oh yes, and in recent weeks I’ve had customers with children named Toshiba and Nautica. I really wanted to ask Nautica’s mom if she named her child after cologne, clothing, or a local bar.
The worst are names spelled one way that are pronounced totally different. Latest one we had was Teresa…except she spelled is Trisha…pronounced it with 3 syllables, and no h sound. And she had the nerve to get mad because we spelled it the way it sounded.
Maybe some of the ‘wrong gender’ names originated outside of the USA? In France and Russia there are plenty of boys’ names that would be given to girls in Anglo-Saxon countries (Valery, Camille, Lillian etc.)
I’m confident that Alexis is predominantly a male name outside of the US - I hadn’t heard of it used as a female name until I saw The Colbys.
[quote]
Originally posted by Caught@Work
in “Zork! My underwear fell down again”.
[/q]
Holy gravy that’s funny!!! If you came up with that yourself, I’d like permission to sometimes use that as a sig!
LOL
Checkout ladies at the local grocery store - Tondelaya (reminds me of Donkey Kong) and Gimmie (dunno if it’s pronounced “Jimmie” or what). Girl from high school - Sheneatha. Girl from grammar school - Tshenna (she had a sister named Essence Capri). My sister’s friend - Korvetta.
I carefully considered a first name for my child. I wanted something distinctive, but not idiotic-sounding (at least to me). If he had been a girl, I would have named him Delphinia (nobody liked it but me) or Elena. But he turned out an Alan - my father’s middle name, which I thought was good, unambiguously male but not quite “Spike”, and one you don’t come across too often. If I have another son, I’d like to name him Glenn, after my grandfather. Boy names I wanted to avoid were David, Michael, William, Robert, Brian, Christopher, or John, because I know about a hundred of each. I also avoided Joshua, Jacob, and Jack, even though I like those names, because every parent of my generation seems to have used those names…but his middle name is Joseph. I have no real reason why I chose Joseph, other than that I wanted to call him A.J.
Gundy
saying much, adding little
Phaedra with an “e” is classical (greek? trojan?) I think - like Racine’s “Phaedre”. But it’s a wonderful name - really powerful and beautiful.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Legomancer *I’d kill to have the name “Zork”.
[quote]
No killing necessary. Just take a trip down to the local courthouse, and Zork could be yours forever!
I’ll have to disagree with you, here. Any name that is uncommon in and of itself, but is obviously part of a naming trend really doesn’t count. Here in NJ, it seems that almost every young black woman has an “unusual” name. There may only be one LaRhonda, but there is also Laronda, L’Rhonda, LaShonda, and Taronda.
Similarly, it’s really common to give kids Celtic names at the moment. Even if there is only one Seamus in the class, it still is just one of many trendy Celtic names. (and before you yell at me, I thnk Seamus is a fine name–as long as your last name isn’t Horowitz or something.)
Charmain–Zoltan is a real name. I have met/encountered a number of Zoltans in my time. I think it’s Eastern European of some sort. It is an ultra-cool name, in any case.
Well, actually, that may be my own mother. Her name is Curtisteen. Since our last name is also a male first name, she gets a lot of mail for Mr. Wxxxx Curtisteen.
She goes by Teen, which is invariably corrupted to Tina by those who first meet her.
Also, when my sister was in the first grade, her teacher was asking the kids what their parents’ names were. When my sister said “Curtisteen” the teacher told her there was no such name, and her mother’s name was probably “Christine.” Well, even at the age of six, my sister didn’t like being told she was wrong, especially when she knew she was right.
It wasn’t until later, when my mother had to send a note to the teacher for some reason, that the woman realized that, hey, first graders actually do know some things their teachers don’t. To her credit, she did apologize.
Then there’s the fact that my parents named their five kids in alphabetical order. The only reason I’m David is because I was the fourth child.
Oo! That’s a cool one! “I am Space Commander Zardoz! Champion of the Omega Quadrant!”
That is kind of annoying. I don’t mind simply difficult spellings, like Siobhan which is pronounced more like “chiffon”. But parent are inviting confusion when they write “Peter” and say “it’s pronounced ‘Robert’.”
My name is Charmian, not Charmain. I’ll chalk it up to a typo.
This is the only thing that drove me crazy as a kid (the “don’t squeeze the Charmin” jokes meant nuthin’). Every award I won had to be sent back to the engravers, every team jersey had to be returned to redo my name. My fancy Easter egg was returned and my birthday cakes had to be corrected. My business cards had to be reprinted.
“Charmain” (and I think “Charmaine”) has Celtic origins. My name has very, very old Persian origins.
While Zoltan may be common in some parts, Z.'s parents did come up with it by combining two separate names from two different languages. Though I think they did check it out to be sure that it didn’t mean anything bad, so presumably they were aware that it was a name elsewhere.
By the way my life is going I will never father children.
If I did. Eric for a boy. Susan for a girl.
Simple, easy, middle of the road.
Yeah, like those names are weird compared to: Snickers, Zappo, kittenblue & cagiva650?
lol.
I seem to remember that androgynous names like Kelsey and so on always become unisex within a few generations. Usually because people associate it with some famous person of that name.
Could be worse. My real name is Michael - which would be fine, if there weren’t (I’m not kidding) 6 guys named Michael in our 30 man company.
:rolleyes:
Hence my preference for “porkchop”