“Biggus Dickus?”
Regards,
Shodan
If I got saddled with a bullshit name by my parents, on my 18th birthday I’d be down at the courthouse getting it changed. It’s a child, not your fucking pet.
And look, we have an example of that right here:
I don’t think anyone thinks “Oh, how clever those parents were to set their child up for years of ridicule!” Just the opposite.
In the Steinbeck book, “Sweet Thursday”, there was a male character (of Hispanic descent, I believe) called, “Joseph and Mary.” I always wondered if this was an uncommon name in that community, or if it was an invention of Steinbeck’s.
No - the parents think they are being clever - they either don’t think or care about the long term.
Odd, the things this is making me think of.
The Faulkner story Tomorrow included a boy named Jackson and Longstreet Fentry. And, in the movie adaptation at least, he was always called Jackson and Longstreet. Maybe that was an inspiration.
Wavy Gravy named his son Howdy Dogood Tomahawk Truckstop Gravy, partly because he was born in a bus at the Tomahawk Truckstop. Although the name was often shortened to Howdy. When the boy was 15 he announced that he was too old to be called Howdy and renamed himself (I think) Jordan Beecher Romney. There was no drama.
My former city struggled to pronounce the name of an official. It was Mike Hunt. You had to be careful. Also, I knew a child named Iamjesus. He had problems in school.
Yehudah Tzvi Windweher arrived at Ellis Island and asked his friend “What would be a good American name for me? I want it to be Jewish, but more American.”
His friend replied, “Sam Cohen, that’s a good American Jewish name.”
Yehudah Tzvi began his long walk up a massive flight of steps leading to the immigration office. With each step he said, “Sam Cohen, Sam Cohen,” in an earnest effort to learn his new name. When he finished carrying his luggage to the top of the flight, he was winded and tired.
A large immigration officer caught Yehuda Tzvi off guard when he said, “NAME?” in a booming voice. A flustered Yehudah Tzvi replied “Shoyn fargesin” (“I already forgot” in Yiddish).
The immigration officer replied “Sean Ferguson, welcome the United States of America!”
When I was in high school a classmate was named Charles Hicken. Not unusual in of itself but for the PE classes we had to wear per a school edict a blue T-shirt with a white oval across the chest marked with our first initial, last name. His was C HICKEN so you can guess what his nickname for those four years was.
To all the parents that want to be clever, do so in the middle name. That way, kidlet can correct the teacher the first day of school that "Joe is my first name, but I prefer to be called by my middle name “truck stop” instead of vice versa. Let the kid opt in on your crazy.
Reminded again today at my local homebrew supply shop that I frequent and shoot the shit with the proprietor once or twice a month. He called me by my first name, which now is commonly a woman’s name (I’ve yet to meet or come across another man with this name) that he got from my credit card a year or two back. I let him know once that I preferred my bog standard one of the 4 apostle’s middle name, and he remembered that for a few months, but has since reverted to my first name. I let it slide, especially as he just uses it as a moniker instead of a playground taunt.
Christ almighty, it does get really tough to hold a civil tounge when a manager or cow-orker somehow finds out my first name, and then make’s fun of it as a girls name. And I’m talking professionals in multiple global 100 companies. I can’t do the playground thing of referring to them by the nastiest obscenity possible or starting a fist fight. Le sigh. And I’m too old to be starting fist fights anyway.
So, if you must, be creative with the middle name of your child. They will thank you for it.
Shirley? I knew a guy named Shirley, although he preferred to go by “Dude.”
José María is a fairly common name for men in the Hispanic community–or at least it used to be 40+ years ago. I don’t know whether parents are still giving this name to boys nowadays, but I’ve heard of numerous men from Spain, Latin America and the Philippines with this name.
There’s even a wikipedia article on it: José María - Wikipedia
Shirley used to be a last name or man’s name, until the 1850s and the popularity of Charlotte Bronte’s book Shirley:
“Before the publication of the novel, Shirley was an uncommon – but distinctly male – name and would have been an unusual name for a woman.”
Heh. Good story.
Reminds me of the story about Ole Olsen’s Chinese Restaurant.
(The proprietor had been processed at Ellis Island right behind a group of Norwegian immigrants, the last three of whom had responded that their names were all Ole Olsen.
When the restaurateur came to the desk, the official said, “Name?” And he responded with “Sam Ting.”)
My daughters friend was the youngest of 11, Dad named her Zyenda. 
I’ve heard of “Boy” being used as a nickname. It turns up in a novel by Evelyn Waugh, and in IRL my uncle while growing up had a friend who went by that name. To put this in temporal perspective, the novel is Brideshead Revisited, published very shortly after World War II, and my uncle grew up in the 1920s and 1930s.
My aunt was the only girl with four brothers in the family, so she was “Sis”. It’s even in the census with her name listed as Sis. Here real name was Vivian.
My friend was going to call her first son Oliver Joel, until somebody pointed out that would result in him being called ‘OJ’. I said nobody would remember O J Simpson by the time he grew up, but I was wrong.
In the end she dropped the Joel idea and saved it for her second son.
My brother’s son is named JustUs. They pronounce it justice. My wife’s niece (farm girl) named her 1st daughter darianne which she pronounced dairy ann.
Reminds me of Decimus et Ultimus Barziza (1838-1882).
he was indeed the tenth, and also the last, of the children in his family. Truth in advertising.
No one has brought up that Kim and Kanye West’ s kids names. I mean how ridiculous can you get.