I used to work with elementary school kids in L.A., so it’s killing me that I can’t remember the great names I saw there. I can remember sisters named Champagne, Chablis, and Chardonnay, but I can’t remember if that was from real life or a book. I’ve met more than one Champagne, anyway.
One summer-camp mom named her three daughters after various Miss America’s…the names weren’t necessarily all that bad, but it was clear she wasn’t planning on her daughters growing up to be lawyers or engineers.
Went to school with a Davivier (Da-VIV-ee-ay) and a Tangerine, who went by Tangy. Ran across a professional woman named Tijuana recently.
Orestes. No, it’s not because it sounds odd in English; the guy’s Greek. But why on earth would you name your kid after a guy who’s famous for killing his mother??!
There was a woman in my Army Reserve unit who had been named for her father. The parents had been sure she would be a boy. So she became Floydene Earlene. My cousin, a RN, had to talk a woman out of naming her brand new daughter(no dad around)Clitoris. The gal heard the word mentioned during her delivery and thought it sounded pretty. My cousin the nurse had to explain what the word actually meant.
cazzle, perhaps “Angel” would make more sense if you think of it like “Jesus” - it’s not “AIN-jel,” it’s “Ahn-HELL.” Living in Southern California, one learns these things.
Friend of mine teaches music in an inner-city school. He has had students named Aquanetta (named after that famed hairspray, Aqua Net) and Female (pronounced “fe-MAH-lay”). My sister went to school with Candy Cotton. My step-grandfather’s name was Thomas Thomas (and they almost lived on Thomas road).
Jeez, and my dad was overcautious by not naming me George III!
I have a Russian friend named Igor. (I get a whole lot of “Is that REALLY his name??”) His middle name is Aleksander. He has a brother, whose name is Aleksander. His middle name is Igor.
Their father’s name is Alexsander. I wonder what his middle name is. And I wonder how far it goes back.
And I wonder what kind of arguments happened between Father/mother…
I went to first grade with two children named Demetrius Jones. Not so strange, you say? One was a boy and one a girl.
I have also had the pleasure of meeting people named Peter Peter, Mary Juana(don’t rememeber her last name), and Harold Richard Head(I have no idea if he went by a nickname or not).
I don’t remember any other strange names, but I throw myself in with those who dislike the current trend of "k"s and "Y"s in names. Give me traditional names. I’ll be one of those with kids named Sarah and Rebecca, Joshua and Robert.
That’s the real issue isn’t it? Aleksander is a perfectly good name, but the poor kid’s going to spend a lifetime saying: “No, it’s with a ks not an *x”.
I have a friend who’s named his son Raimund, (the german form IIRC of Raymond). It’s pronounced the same way, and in NZ the more english spelling with a y and an o is most common so he’s going to have to continually correct his name.
My surname Dickson (the scottish spelling) is also commonly spelt Dixon (the more english spelling). It’s about 50/50 which way people spell it and whilst I’m pretty laid back about it, you have to get the right spelling on anything official/important. It’s a minor pain correcting it continually, and I agree with you cazzle, why would anyone deliberately saddle a kid with the problem?
'Course having just named my son Alexander (for a grandfather), my wife’s pointed out that with an x in his first name the chances he’ll incorrectly get one in his surname have probably increased. <sigh>
My brother once shared a room, while being stationed at Camp Pendelton, with one LanceCorporal Ivanta Jackoff. Right on his chest and everything in big capital letters: JACKOFF. To be fair, it was pronounced Ja-cough and he was first generation. I can’t remember the country his family came from. But, yeesh, having that name and being in the Marines?
::shrug:: I’m living in Australia now. My kids were born in NZ. One’s got an easy to spell name but the other one got the Slavic spelling of his unusual name. I honestly get the pip when people think that I should use British spellings or spellings which they can deal with. Tough sh*t. My kids come from two cultures and both cultures matter.
Anyway my kids use my surname which is difficult to spell so they are doomed anyway. Nobody can pronounce it either. OTOH the name Mr Primaflora uses is totally Anglo and nobody can spell that one either. The difference is that everyone thinks they can so we end spending a lot more time explaining how to spell it.
I’m not a fan of made up spellings. MrPrimaflora’s daughter has a nasty name her mother got from an unpublished science fiction novel written by a friend and it’s just ghastly.
I love the name Alexander. I just don’t see why you’d mess with the spelling. No one will ever get it right. Your child would constantly be correcting people. That’s got to bug you after a while. And if there are 5 Alexanders in the class, it’s not going to make one lick of difference if it’s spelt different - he’s still going to be known by his first name and last initial. Only he’ll be Alekzander R. instead of Alexander R. Sure, if it’s a family name that’s always been spelt that way, fair enough, but I’m talking about people who change it to be trendy.
Another example from the site I linked to is Carralaigne
an alternative spelling for Caroline. Who is going to get that right?
My friend N. has a sister name Rebekah. This caused some confusion when N. was at school. Every time she wrote her sister’s name, the teacher would try to correct it. Her teacher didn’t realise that she was in fact spelling it correctly.
On the other hand, when used to adjust the pronounciation, I have no trouble with altering the spelling. I like the name Megan, but prefer it when it’s pronounced MAE-gan, rather than MEE-gan, therefore I would spell it Maegan. Yes, it would take the same sort of explanations, but it means that the child can insist their name be pronounced right, because Maegan is different to Megan.
I live in a very culturally diverse city, and BOY do I see some interesting names. My favorite is Aquanette (yep, got one here, too).
My daughter just started preschool, and one of the girls in her class is named Lexus. Urgh. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. I know I’ve seen Toyota as a name here too.
When my husband and I were expecting our daughter, one of the names he came up with for a boy was Marshall. Now, that isn’t a bad name, really. But my husband is a musician, and proposed Stack for a middle name. Ha. Ha. Ha. NOT.
My daughter’s middle name, though, is one that we chose partly because it sounds good with her first name, and also because if she ever decides she wants a stage name, her middle name will work just fine (it’s Page, BTW).
My son got a nice, normal boy name. John Robert, after my late father-in-law and my father. No funky spelling, so funky pronunciation. And NO, we do not call him J.R. We call him Johnzilla.
I’ve got a cousin named Juan-Luis. Everyone has always called him J.L. And his parents were surprised the first time he got arrested. J.L. just had his first kid, by the way. He named her Dallas.
I myself came within a hairsbreadth of being named Struan. (Strew-ann) Makes being called Mackenzie quite bearable, I can tell you. And I can also tell you that having to always provide the spelling of your name is not a big deal. It’s certainly not a good enough reason to avoid a perfectly lovely name like Aleksandra.
While I don’t care for the use of car brands, hair products, or major Texan cities as names for children, I think drawing on your ethnic heritage for a name is fine. But a little care, perhaps, should be paid to unfortunate English synonyms. Example: I went to school with a kid named Ketal, pronounced “kettle.” Which is a nice enough Indian name, but his poor sister was named Shittel. Which is just wrong. I mean, this girl was five grades below us. I don’t think we ever laid eyes on her, and we still made fun of her. I cringe to think of what her actual classmates did to her.
I wonder if the parents got Lexus from the obvious source of from some book of trendy baby names.
Whilst thinking about baby names recently a friend lent us a book called something like “10,000 names for New Zealand babies”, and some of its offerings made Lexus look positively banal.
I can’t remember any of the truly bizarre examples, but honestly, how can you write a book of baby names and not warn parents that Kermit might not the best name for their baby boy. :rolleyes:
