# You're naming your baby what!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 29, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202 "2004-11-29T20:06:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/81 "2004-11-30T00:52:17Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#):
>
> I like some unusual names as long as they sound nice and aren’t spelled in a stupid way that nobody would think to write it.
>
> If I had a boy, I might name him Dakota
Um, Dakota was a more common name than Alan or George or Peter for [boys born in 2003](http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babynames.cgi); even as a girl’s name, it was more common than Ruth, Anne or Helen.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/82 "2004-11-30T00:59:06Z")
Maybe it’s just geeky old me, but _Dagen_ immediately brought to mind _Dagon_, Semitic fish-gods and H.P. Lovecraft’s _Deep Ones_.
Now I’m not trying to imply anything here, but I don’t think a casual check for webbed toes on that baby by the attending physician would be entirely out of order. Even half-human ichthyoid cultists can aspire to novel new names you know ;).
- Tamerlane
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/83 "2004-11-30T01:02:19Z")
Come to think of it, though I do support the right of parents to name their children as they please, I think I’d be a little wary of cute little babies named Nyarlathotep as well.
- Tamerlane
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/84 "2004-11-30T01:08:10Z")
You know what the problem really is? It’s people picking names purely on sound and not paying any attention to what the name means.
My son is named for his great-grandfather on his mother’s side. His middle name is the same middle name that the first-born male child has had in my family for the last seven generations.
My daughter is named for my grandmother. Her middle name is a heroine from Shakespeare of which her mother and I are particularly fond.
The problem with all the made-up names is that they don’t tie the kid to anything. The same can be said of the super-popular names.
A good name links a child to his family history and to the civilization around him. It gives him something to be proud of and something to live up to.
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### Author:  [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/85 "2004-11-30T01:21:28Z")
I’ve got a traditional name, spelled slightly differently (Lezlie) and yeah, it’s a pain in the ass. When you’re a little kid, you can never find any of those personalized license plates or barrettes or anything. And we won’t even get into all the “lezbo, lezzie” jokes I was the butt of in grade school.
But those things were just minor annoyances. The _really_ annoying thing? Having to explain the name story every time someone asks about the spelling, which is _all the freaking time_. I recently told my mother that I was going to start charging her a buck every time I had to tell it.
So, yeah. If you see someone with an oddly spelled name? Please, for the love of Og, _don’t comment on it or ask if there’s any story behind it_. Trust me, we’ve been asked about it about 500 times before.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/86 "2004-11-30T01:22:03Z")
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> You know what the problem really is? It’s people picking names purely on sound and not paying any attention to what the name means.
and this is bad, because??? why isn’t “I like the sound of this” a valid reason to select a name?
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> My daughter is named for my grandmother. Her middle name is a heroine from Shakespeare of which her mother and I are particularly fond.
, so apparently her middle name isn’t related to family, you just like the character of some play? that’s a valid reason but “I like the sound of this” isn’t?
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> The problem with all the made-up names is that they don’t tie the kid to anything. The same can be said of the super-popular names.
I call bullshit. My former boss’ name was made up. The first syllable was the first syllable of her fathers name, the second syllable was the second syllable of her mothers name. SHe was rather fond of it, it did indeed connect very directly with her family.
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> A good name links a child to his family history and to the civilization around him. It gives him something to be proud of and something to live up to.
you are entitled to your opinion of what is a good name. Others mileage does indeed vary. Interesting, also to note that the ‘civilization around’ the child may indeed be very different from the one connected to one’s family history.
again, you have criteria for what would be a good name. I don’t see that edict etched in stone anywhere.
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### Author:  [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/87 "2004-11-30T01:25:49Z")
> [@wring](#):
>
> A. I smell “urban legend” here.
Oh, so she’s lying that it was her coworker. Silly me, I tend to believe people unless they prove themselves to be liars.
> [@](#):
>
> B. no, that’s \*\*not \*\* the problem outlined by the OP. the ‘problem’ that was listed in the OP were **not** names that could be confused with diseases, but were ‘non traditional’ (anglo/saxon)names or ‘non traditional spelling’ of traditional (anglo/saxon) names. and I don’t see a problem with either of those two.
Where did I say that every outlandish name could be confused with a disease? They don’t have to be, plenty of them are horrible enough on their own. And please note my previous posts where I mentioned the baby name website linked to in the other thread, and that it was THOSE types, rather than semi-creative spellings that I was talking about.
> [@](#):
>
> C. I would, for the record, see a problem with a name that was a disease. I’d not like (for the childs sake) to see a name that became a pun when combined w/the last name.
Well, we’re all in agreement on that one…
> [@](#):
>
> but, non traditional (anglo/saxon) names? or non traditional spellings of same? nope, no problem for me.
Well, maybe I’m not understanding others in the thread and what they’re saying as well as you. But it seems to me that they’re just picking easily remembered examples off the tops of their heads to illustrate what they mean, which is the highly overdramatized “will be a stripper when she grows up”, beyond the pale so-called creative spellings and names that were never “traditional anglo/saxon names” to begin with. Or, if they were, they’ve had so many extra syllables added on, all of the vowels taken out, and so many middle and additional names added on to it so as to render it not only completely unrecognizeable, but unpleasant as well.
You don’t have a problem with that. Fine, we understand that. A lot of us do, and for the reasons we’ve stated. In many cases, it’s done as a status symbol type gesture, more to be “cool” and stand out, than it is in any way thinking of the child and what THEY may want.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/88 "2004-11-30T01:30:09Z")
I think it’s much worse when people don’t think about how the diminuitive of the name is going to fit with the last name. The problems with “Dick” are legion, but there are others that are pretty odd. For instance, one of my relatives married a man with the last name of ‘Coe’. He has a brother named Christopher. Chris Coe. Grew up tough.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/89 "2004-11-30T01:34:37Z")
> [@Hamlet](#):
>
> Give me made-up names over consumeristic marketing names anyday. I can live with parents naming their kids Kaden and Mattison, but the ones who name their kid Lexus or Armani should be sterilized.
>
> > [@threemae](#):
> >
> > Cite? Seriously, has anyone actuallly used that?
According to [the Social Security Administration](http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babynames.cgi), Armani was number 711 out the top 1000 names for boys in 2003, and Lexus was number 888 on the top 1000 names for girls in 2003.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/90 "2004-11-30T01:35:01Z")
I seem to recall a Pit thread from a few years ago about a couple who were selling the right to name their child to major corporations in sort of a bidding war-anyone remember that?
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### Author:  [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/91 "2004-11-30T01:35:19Z")
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> A good name links a child to his family history and to the civilization around him. It gives him something to be proud of and something to live up to.
And what if you don’t have any family (as both I and my soon-to-be ex-husband hardly do) nor want to be associated with what you have? Furthermore, aren’t all names in history made up at some point or other? The origins have to be somewhere, not just dropped out of thin air.
For the record too, my mother technically named me after herself once she choose a nickname out of the blue to go by rather than Margaret. You know, apart from my small dislikes already over my name, this is the only aspect I really truly _hate_. Why? Because it strikes me that she was being particularly vain, deciding to make me a little “Mini Me,” with personality already built in. I didn’t have an identity of my own and now, for the most part although I try exceptionally hard to curb it, have a difficult time when I hear that someone has past a name along because it belonged to someone else in the family. I understand and respect their choice and they obviously have the right to do however they wish, but it seems (to one who’s been there) a little unfair to those who want to fall more into the _unique_ department regarding this. Although, I suppose, one can always change it later as suits.
EveryonesMWillVObviously.
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### Author:  [@GoodGrief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodGrief)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/92 "2004-11-30T01:36:35Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> The only reason I brought up the spellings is more about people who name their kid something everyone else is, (Right now, it seems to be Madison or whatever), but come up with off-the-wall spellings just to be different.
We named our daughter Madison because we liked the name, plus I don’t know of any other Madison’s. It’s spelled the common way, to make it easy on everybody all the way around, plus I don’t care for all those off-the-wall spellings myself. 😉
Her middle name is Marie-after my late grandmother.
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### Author:  [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/93 "2004-11-30T01:43:04Z")
> [@threemae](#):
>
> > [@Hamlet](#):
> >
> > Give me made-up names over consumeristic marketing names anyday. I can live with parents naming their kids Kaden and Mattison, but the ones who name their kid Lexus or Armani should be sterilized.
>
> Cite? Seriously, has anyone actuallly used that?
The same hospital I was referring to earlier in this thread brings us “Lexus R.” born 6/10/2004. I recalled that one because a good friend of mine had a baby at that hospital the same month.
I’m rather glad I browsed on back to June to pull up that one, because it reminded me of two other younguns born that very same month.
Aryan. Yes that’s right, some parent in the United States in this day and age thought it was good to name a child Aryan. There was also a Kobe in the midst of the Kobe Bryant rape accusations, but next to Lexus and Aryan, can you really complain?
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### Author:  [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/94 "2004-11-30T01:44:01Z")
I’d just like to take this opportunity to tell y’all not to name your kids Kylei or Kayla or Kayleigh or whatever. The more this sort of name becomes popular, the more outlandish misspellings and pronunciations I have to endure. I am 26 years old and I was here first. Find some other name to inflict upon your kids.
(Yes, my parents were hippies. Oddly enough, my little sister has a perfectly ordinary Biblical name.)
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### Author:  [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/95 "2004-11-30T01:45:00Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#):
>
> Oh, so she’s lying that it was her coworker. Silly me, I tend to believe people unless they prove themselves to be liars.
Um, not to speak for **wring** here, but I took that to mean (as someone who’s read snopes for a long time) that it sounded an awful lot like a UL about another parent that wanted to name a child after a urinal. I think. Can anyone help me out on the specifics? And I also know, that using my mother as an example, she’ll tell almost _any_ story from the perspective of either having gone through it or it legitimately happening to a FOAF. For sure. Without a doubt. Even when it’s been proven untrue, she unwaveringly won’t change a thing. No matter what. So, that’s what I took from what she said. Jus’ sayin’ in general, is all.
I’m sure she’ll be along shortly to clarify though.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/96 "2004-11-30T01:46:54Z")
> [@Good Grief](#):
>
> We named our daughter Madison because we liked the name, plus I don’t know of any other Madison’s.
Oh good grief, it was the third most common name for [girls born in 2003](http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babynames.cgi) and in the top ten for the last seven years; right about now, grade schools should be seeing a glut of Madisons.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/97 "2004-11-30T01:55:03Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#):
>
> Oh, so she’s lying that it was her coworker. Silly me, I tend to believe people unless they prove themselves to be liars.
[spare me.](http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.htm)
> [@CanvasShoes](#):
>
> Where did I say that every outlandish name could be confused with a disease? They don’t have to be, plenty of them are horrible enough on their own. And please note my previous posts where I mentioned the baby name website linked to in the other thread, and that it was THOSE types, rather than semi-creative spellings that I was talking about.
and where did I say that you said that? WHat I’ve said is that the list, as posted by the OP fell into the genre as far as I could see of “non traditional nonanglo/saxon” names or “alternative spellings of anglo/saxon names”, not of diseases or things similar. Your post, to which I responded was something to the effect of **this** (the “clymidia” example) is what we are talking about, and my response was that, well, no, not according to the OP and that the example you gave was, IMHO, an urban legend and likely not real. (see link above).
> [@CanvasShoes](#):
>
> Well, maybe I’m not understanding others in the thread and what they’re saying as well as you. But it seems to me that they’re just picking easily remembered examples off the tops of their heads to illustrate what they mean, which is the highly overdramatized “will be a stripper when she grows up”, beyond the pale so-called creative spellings and names that were never “traditional anglo/saxon names” to begin with. Or, if they were, they’ve had so many extra syllables added on, all of the vowels taken out, and so many middle and additional names added on to it so as to render it not only completely unrecognizeable, but unpleasant as well.
unpleasant to who? Sheesh. Look at a listing of ambassadors to the UN, and you’ll find any number of names that aren’t familiar to us in the US. so what? So, some mother wants to name her child LaTonknia, because she likes the sound and wants a distinctive spelling to set her precious daughter aside from the other 50 "Latonya"s in the class. That’s her perogative. I know you understand that.
> [@CanvasShoes](#):
>
> You don’t have a problem with that. Fine, we understand that. A lot of us do, and for the reasons we’ve stated. In many cases, it’s done as a status symbol type gesture, more to be “cool” and stand out, than it is in any way thinking of the child and what THEY may want.
So what? I’ll bet you named your kids what **you** wanted to, also and I’m pretty confident you didn’t ask your newborn what they thought of it (or if you did, I"'m positive you didn’t get a response that translated well). You may have based it on other reasons (after a family member, traditional name, traditional spelling) but you get to do that.
See, I don’t much care what criteria other folks use to name their kids. Obviously you do. You seem to have an ‘approved’ list of criteria. You get to do that. You apparently object to other parents naming their kids something 'cause they think it’s “cool” and want their kid to stand out. And I get to think that’s petty of you.
See, it all works.
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### Author:  [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/98 "2004-11-30T01:55:52Z")
> [@threemae](#):
>
> Cite? Seriously, has anyone actuallly used that?
[http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/7592220.htm](http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/7592220.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> Cleveland Evans, a psychology professor at Bellevue University in Nebraska, analyzed the names of 4 million babies born in this country in the year 2000 and discovered a nascent and unusual trend: Parents naming their babies after products.
>
> …
>
> Although there were hundreds of thousands of Ashleys and Emilys and Joshuas and Jacobs born that year, Evans was intrigued by the more unusual names. There were 55 Chevys, 12 Camrys, 7 Courvoisiers (named for the cognac), 17 Dodges, five Darvons and six Ronricos.
>
> That’s just the boys.
>
> The girls’ names included 298 Armanis, 164 Nauticas, 36 Cateras (a Cadillac) and six Cartiers. And there were an astounding 442 girls named Essence\_a name inspired, he believes, by the magazine.
>
> …Atari Bigby…
>
> …DeLorean Winzens…
>
> …Chanel…
>
> …Tiffany…
>
> But in a twist that surprised even Evans, he discovered five girls born in 2000 who were named Disney. That’s right\_the perfect vacation destination.
There’s more at the link. I remembered this article because it came out shortly after my son was born.
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### Author:  [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/99 "2004-11-30T01:57:02Z")
> [@Kyla](#):
>
> (Yes, my parents were hippies. Oddly enough, my little sister has a perfectly ordinary Biblical name.)
My friends are not. And yet, among them, they’ve managed to name their children Autumn Sierra, Trinity, and Rhiannon. It simply boggles the mind sometimes.
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### Author:  [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-naming-your-baby-what/277202/100 "2004-11-30T02:04:58Z")
> [@The Devil's Grandmother](#):
>
> I’m trying to recall what manly characters were popular when I was in my early 20s…MacGyver? Remington? Blake? What was the first name of Magnum PI? Are there a bunch of kids with those names?
Um, it was **T\*\*\*\*homas** Magnum. I’m pretty sure that freaky name’s still flying around, thwarting kindergarten teachers content to pronounce all 10 separate spellings of Madison/Haley/Kristen/Jackson/Carson.
I was going be either a Boris or a Jennifer; thank G-d my dad’s mother hated my name in the baby book and my mom hated her!
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