Yeah…in fact, there’s a fairly well-known Hungarian composer named Zoltan Kodaly. (My choir is, in fact, rehearsing his Te Deum – it’s very cool.)
Has no one here yet come upon the Utah Baby Namer? It’s quite something, and I’ve contributed a few myself. (Yes, I am the proud owner of “Elvoid.”)
The most unusual name I can come up with right now is that of a neighbor kid when I was growing up. Cleopatrick J. Wartley III.
I am from rural Louisiana and I went to high school with Peaches and Pumpkin. They were twins. Big black male twins that were star basketball players. You can’t laugh at that.
Then again, my real name is “Maverick” and I love it.
We used some of the more interesting names as ‘in utero’ names. My two sons were named ‘Dingbang’ (found that in the baby name book) and ‘Splasny Nork’ (just cause we liked the sound)
When I was in high school, the very nice family of Korean immigrants who lived next to us had a little boy, whom they named Joon. I think that someone explained to them that this is more often a girls name (June) in America. About a month later, the father told my father that his father in Korea (i.e., the baby’s grandfather) had decided that, since this boy was born in America, he should have an American name. They changed his name legally to Michael.
My father was surprised. When he was growing up in Oklahoma in the 40s and 50s, there were lots of boys named June. Apparently it was a common nickname for Junior.
The first year I taught undergraduates, I had an ethnic Korean girl in my class named Heidi. We got to talking about names, and she told me that when she first came to America as a toddler, her family became close friends with the American family across the street. When it came time to register her for kindergarden, her American auntie filled out the forms, using the accepted transliteration system. Thus, my student’s name, pronounced “Way,” was written as “Hue.” She didn’t speak any English, and when the teachers inevitably addressed her as “Hugh” she ignored them, as that wasn’t her name. The upshot of the whole thing was that her name was changed to Heidi.
Obviously, at that time Asian names were too unusual to make it through the mill. Now, we have a girl in our neighborhood named Ya Fan, and no one blinks an eye. I think that’s a big step forward.
My mom named me a less-traditional girl’s name - Sarah - and luckily I have encountered very few Sarahs in my lifetime. I went by my middle name, Nicole, for the first 7 years of my life, but when I started school there were so many variations of it that we decided Sarah was prettier and easier.
If I ever have a daughter, I will name her Lucinda and call her Lucy. It’s not very popular at all these days, but I think both versions are lovely and I would want her to be a comedic genius like her namesake. (Okay, it’s not Lucille, but I hate that name. Close enough.) I think Lucinda Elizabeth is beautiful and simple and classic, and most importantly, original without bordering on torturous.
I used to go to church with a girl named Candy Disch. It took me years before I realized that was funny…her mom was Mrs Disch, she was just Candy…never thought to put the two together.
Here are some names I just found in there that I thought you all should know about:
Boy, Girl, Brother, Sister, Dimples, and Two-Million… sigh
Yes, I heard about what George Foreman did when he named his kids… I wouldn’t recommend that either.
I would most certainly hope there aren’t 2,500 boys named Katelin-Bradley! :eek:
For heresiarch and everyone else who asked, this is what the book has to say about where the names were taken from:
These are some of the sources the author drew on for the list of names:
[ul]
[li]various U.S. centers for Health Statistics[/li][li]various U.S. departments of vital statistics and health policy[/li][li]various Canadian vital statistics agencies[/li][li]various offices of data, research, and vital statistics[/li][li]various offices of health care information[/li][li]various state health divisions[/li][/ul]
It is true that the perceptions of what is an acceptable name for one gender have changed over the years… I know this first-hand. Which means that I had the exact same name (first and last) as a guy in my homeroom when I was in Gr. 8! :eek: (and yes, my real name happens to be Leslie)
I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with those unusual names, Charmian. It’s a good thing you’re proud of them, that they make you unique, and that you continue to use them; however, there are names that are too unusual! Yours are not that unusual-sounding, at least. 
When my friend dragged me to see “Blair Witch 2”, I noticed that one of the actresses in the movie was named Tristan something-or-other.
Yes, I remember hearing about what Bob Geldof and Paula Yates named their kids: Peaches, Fifi Trixiebelle, and Pixie, wasn’t it? But what about Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates’ daughter? What a name to have: Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily! :eek:
We probably get to hear a lot more about them, this is true. I remember hearing that Erykah Badu (an R&B singer) named her son Seven, of all things. Probably the number has certain properties, who knows?
Some of the names could very well come from human error; for example, I saw “Hocelyn”, which has to be a typo for Jocelyn! (I’d hope)
And as for people with a weird sense of humor giving their kids strange names, that could very well be true! I don’t want to imagine:
Husband: “Let’s give our kid a really weird name, honey!”
Wife: “Okay, sweetie… we have lots of time to think of one since I’m only ten weeks pregnant!”
:rolleyes:
Letting your kids choose their own names when they got old enough??? :eek: That might work out, but what would the people at school, home, or various other places call them before they chose their name? Weird…
By the way, I have gotten mail addressed to “Mr.”, as well. One of those things that comes with having a name like mine, I suppose!
Hmmm… Summer Winters… sounds good to me! :rolleyes:
I have a friend whose brother is named Czardos, but the family comes from the Philippines. (so it must be an ethnic name, no?)
Phaedre is the name of a character in some of the “Outlander” books by Diana Gabaldon. As I recall, she’s a body slave to Jocasta Cameron. I have no idea what the name means, but it is a nice name.
That little girl may be named after the Rolling Stones song “Ruby Tuesday”… just a thought. Certainly there are worse things to name your child after, if you must do so!
And as for that other name, maybe they were trying for “Aphrodite” (Greek or Roman goddess of love) and got it wrong.
I tried hard not to include any “wrong-gender” names in my posted list that are perfectly acceptable names in other parts of the world. For instance, I know that in Russia, Alexis is a boy’s name (the only son of Nicholas II, for example); also, Nicola is a perfectly acceptable boy’s name in Italy. I’m sure there are many more examples, but those are the only two I could think of off the top of my head.
I definitely agree with you on this one! At my church, there used to be a girl named Janet; however, she pronounced it more like “Jeannette” or “Janette”. Apparently that’s how “Janet” is pronounced in Hong Kong, where she was born. :rolleyes:
Yes, I remember Kodaly from my long-ago days of playing the piano; I wouldn’t consider that to be a weird name at all!
I remember coming across that site a few years ago; I was quite surprised at some of the names in there! :eek:
Cleopatrick, eh? Sounds much like Cleopatra, if you ask me.
Interesting… last year, I came across a kid that was named Maverick. On the Facts About Multiples website, there is a kid named Maverick; he’s part of the Davis quadruplets.
You found “Dingbang” in the baby name book?!? :eek: Please tell me you’re kidding! Luckily, it’s not in the book I have.
As for some of the more unusual names I have encountered:
[ul]
[li]my brother went to school with a girl named Ganit (hopefully pronounced “Janet”)[/li][li]Zale (the father of one of my brother’s classmates)[/li][li]Winson (met this guy once or twice at Fellowhip a few years ago)[/li][li]a girl I used to know a few years ago was named Meloney (pronounced “Melanie”)[/li][li]Xanth (an online friend said a coworker of his named her baby boy this)[/li][li]Balkiz and Elif (a set of sisters at my junior high; these may be ethnic names, but unusual to me)[/li][li]my sister has a friend called Hermia… the thing is that her last name is Ting, so all the subs invariably combine the two and pronounce it “hermiating” (yes, I’m well aware that Hermia was a mythological figure, but the side story is funny)[/li][li]Gayden (someone I once knew; she said her parents named her after some neighborhood kid)[/li][li]Aura (a girl in my old elementary school)[/li][li]Pinky, Stellar (both girls in my sister’s friend’s high school)[/li][li]Rigel (a guy in my high school)[/li][li]Rennis (someone who used to live around my old neighborhood)[/li][/ul]
That is funny, but most kids wouldn’t really put the two together… unless you werre bent on bullying the poor girl! :eek: Maybe Candy was short for Candace, and it didn’t occur to the parents how it would sound if it were shortened to Candy? Who knows…
The author of a recent article I read in the paper was Candida Someoneorother. :eek:
I always love these name threads. Obsessing over names is a micro past time for me.
My name is Joan.
Joan is not a peppy name.
Joan is the steady reliable girl who always shows up to work on time, gets the job done and who, well, the boss always trusts with the keys to the office.
Joan is a woman who can make a nice blue berry pie. Joan is perpetually sixty yearing a beehive and polyester pants.
Joan is neither a fashionably, trendy or cutting edge name. It hasn’t been in in over sixty years and will never make a come back. Prudence has a better shot at a come back than Joan.
A woman named Joan will never be confused with a girl named Tiffany-Brittany-Amber.
Joan is not a good blind date name.
There were several Joan’s in my school. All of us were the tail end caboose kids of the baby boom generation. By the time our parents got to naming us, they just plum gave up.
We named our daughter Teagan O’Hara LastName. It is a good blind date name. Not too perky, not Cheerleader From The Deeps Of Hell ™ and not too trendy. (my side of the family is Irish (O’Hara, a family name) and UK-ish, which is what Teagan is, from Wales.
Our Son is Carsten Siegfried LastName. ( Carsten is northern european and hubby’s family is from N. Germany. His middle name is my FIL’s name and hubby’s middle name.)
If we ever had a third child: Josephine is a top contender to complete throw off everyone and for a boy, Oliver (calling him Ollie.)
Buck Wolf gave this subject the treatment in a recent ABCNews column. I feel sorry for the girls named Wisdom or the boys named Truth. Apparently it’s a form of child abuse to have two children with the same name in a class.
I was one of anywhere from 2-5 Mike’s in the same class, but you know what? It forced me to develop my own unique identity, rather than having only a name that made me unique.
Too bad there was no one in my class named Espn… :rolleyes:
Yes, it was short for Candace, and yes, they knew exactly what they were doing.
Had a friend in high school named Bevelyn…her mom’s two best friends were Beverly & Evelyn.
Then there were Pepper and Cappie…brother and sister…but their names were sort of amagrams…Patricia Elizabeth P*** and Charles Arthur P*****…PEPper and CAPpie.
Haha!
Alexis is not a typical name in Russian, for either males or females. I believe the popular spelling of his name is an Anglicization of the name Alexei (akin to referring to the author as ‘Theodor’ Dostoevsky as opposed to his actual name which was Fyodor). I could be wrong about this however, but I do know that Alexis is not traditionally a common name in Russia.
Jury’s still out on that last question. heh.
It was my sister’s doing, really. I think she wanted to go with “Sierra” initially, but even that weird name wasn’t quite weird enough, so she misspelled it. ta da! Unique new name!
Jury’s still out on that last question. heh.
It was my sister’s doing, really. I think she wanted to go with “Sierra” initially, but even that weird name wasn’t quite weird enough, so she misspelled it. ta da! Unique new name!
Yesterday I saw a birth notice for a little girl with the middle name Pepper. It was not her mother’s maiden name, so I still wonder what the significance was. Maddison Pepper _____.
And Flamsterette_X, I figured that Ruby Tuesday was after the song. It would be a strange coincidence indeed if they’d chosen the name without ever hearing the song. Affrodity does indeed appear to be a corruption of Aphrodite. Poor little soul is walking around with a middle name that screams “My parents are stupid!”. In honor of the child, I started a Sims family named Affrodity, Zhoose, Neptoon, Tyten and Perseffeny.
Locally, my mother’s karate instructor has just had a son named Montel, brother to Darnell. Both names are unusual around here.
Oh, and my cousin is expecting a son that she plans to name Utah. Unusual choice for an Australian, non-Mormon child, but there you go. He’s the younger brother of Maximillian Ian, and the son of Koa (Ko-ah).
White Lightning, it may appear that I am overly interested in that kind of thing, but it’s a good thing, really.
After I posted, I realized that it was most probably an Anglicization of the name Alexei. Oh well, what can you do? I posted it already… oops! :o
kittenblue, the parents knew exactly what they were doing? That’s so cruel! (or bad, in the very least; my massive vocabulary has seemed to desert me for the moment)
cazzle, the only thing that the name Montel is associated with in my mind is that talk show host Montel Willliams; or even the inger Montell Jordan. And as for the name Utah, I guess it’s your cousin’s decision, but it still sounds a bit strange.
When I was in high school I knew two middle eastern kids named Asheesh and Akosh. They both were tormented with names like Ashit and Acunt. I never engaged in name calling, and it made me angry that others would do so even in the 11th and 12th grade!
Now later in life I know three fairly young Oriental people, (all siblings) named Lam Dang Wei Dang and Gei Dang, no one, that I know of, has yet to make fun of them.
Ell, I’ve heard of the name Candida; quite some time ago too! I think the person with that name went to our church to speak to the kids about something; of course, I no longer remember what it was! But I’ll always remember that name…
Can anyone tell me what WRT means?
I once met an Oriental girl named Ping a few years ago at a camp; now I know a woman named Ping, who’s also Oriental. (she goes to my church, and is really nice; the mother of my favorite kid!)
Also, I remember seeing the name Alpha in one of my brother’s concert programs. It seems to me that some Oriental people choose funny names for their children; nothing against that, of course.
A few Oriental people that my brother and I (used to) know were named Ophelia, Prudence, Charity, and Mavis. Nothing wrong with these names at all, of course. I’m just pointing them out.
I just remembered: my brother used to go to high school with a girl named Cambie. That’s not bizarre or anything like that, but certainly a little out of the ordinary without being too out there!
Oh, and make that “the singer Montell Jordan” in my last post.