checks herself for invisibility on page 2
I remembered that you posted it! I even read it. 
Names are also social indicators. The child with the easy to pronounce but difficult to spell common name and the child with the uncommon name shared with a large proportion of their classmates advertise not only the approximate year in which they were born, but also quite a lot about their parents’ backgrounds and/or social aspirations (or lack of them). It would be no surprise to anyone living in Britain, on hearing the names of my sister’s children, to find that their parents live in London, have several degrees and work in publishing. A new family comes to the (international) school where I teach: four children with excessively Irish names coupled with an Irish surname? They could be Irish, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar that they’re American.
Naturally I’m convinced that my daughter’s name gives away nothing at all about either of us.
“Buffy” came into use as a diminuitive of Elizabeth.
[sup]It always bugged me that her tombstone read “Buffy Anne” and not “Elizabeth Anne”. Joyce was too sensible to have named her child “Buffy”… right???[/sup]
I am just so irritated by those completely ridiculous spellings, especially ultra-phonetic spellings. I know a girl who named her daughter McKenna, and spelled it Mahkenah. Why doesn’t she just send her daughter to school t-shirts that say; “My mother is sub-literate”? Most of us move past phonics once we hit middle school.
Dove and Mountain Goat? 
Signed,
Tree, sister to Mountain Goat
Tell me about it. My sister was let out into the non-Hebrew speaking word with that name. She complains bitterly that English people in particular can’t pronounce it. “Yale” and “Yayel” are the closest they can get. Spanish speakers, OTOH can deal with it perfectly OK. One of her observations about having an unusual name is that people often avoid using her name when speaking to her.
When she was born and my parents chose the name, their English friends said “Yale? Lock up your daughters!”
Mine is equally unusual outside Israel, but easier to pronounce. Because it is close to several common names in other languages I frequently get re-named Alana, Elena, Ileana, Helena, Ilona among others.
FTR I am extremely fond of both names, especially Mountain Goat.
On the general topic of the thread, I find that the people who come up with the most “creative or imaginative” names are usually the complete opposite in other areas of their lives.
Oh… I just remembered… in high school, I knew a Pentecostal minister who named his daughters Ember, Aurora and Chantal.
I innocently asked him why he wasn’t inspired by his devotion to name them after Bible characters. He went all red and practically spat; “That’s a dirty Jew thing to do.”
I backed away sloooowly, without making any sudden movements…
. . . And then I would say, “You’re welcome!” from all the way on the other side of the country, confusing everyone.
Heh. I named myself Savannah. It’s my alias. Like yours is Alias. You know, like…
Never mind.
I do not like alternative spellings for names, but hey, that’s me.
Probably someone’s linked to this, but “Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing” is pretty funny: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
“Yael” means ibix.
Or possibly something else from the gazelle family; I’m not sure what the name is in English. I’ve seen them, though - in the wild - and they’re definitely not goats.
What type of tree, incidentally? All the tree names I can think of - Oren, Ilan, Alon, Erez - are boy’s names.
Having a very common last name was a large factor in our decision to give our kids uncommon names.
Amos (boy)
Charlee (girl)
Athena (girl)
Paxton (boy)
My wife and I felt it was important to give easy to spell names (Charlee being a possible exception), which were not so strange as to be distracting.
I know. She would translate it as ‘gazelle’. Mountain Goat is just me being mean.
Generic tree, though not ‘Etz’. 
You can probably work it out:
Who?
Actually, my parents did exactly that only with our middle names. My brother’s middle name is Jackson (after Jackson Hole, WY) and my middle name is Noel (because I was conceived around Christmas time). It actually turned out well for us because both of these names are fairly common and they go well with our first names. No one would know the true origin if we didn’t tell them (though everyone thinks I must have been born around Christmas).
We get more slack because our first names rhyme, Gen (short for Genevieve) and Ben (short for Benjamin).
Yes, and if I had read the whole thread before jumping in, I would have seen that. Ahem.
You know, some day I should learn to read the entire post before replying to it.
Ilana’s a nice name.
And what nice, smart, good-looking parents you have PsychoBabble. BTW its time to go to dinner.
Oh, I only directed it to you because you have a cat named Buffy.
[sup]The rest is just me wanking. Carry on.[/sup]
Oh, I see. Yep, that’s right. (if you mean BTVS, my sister’s the fan, and wanted to name her Angel. I suggested “Buffy” instead, since she’s orange-buff-colored.)
:smack:
[ Urban Legends forum, snopes, fark, here, there, everywhere has had someone claiming a FOAF who claimed the Shithead story was real. If it is indeed true that you are the genesis of the Shithead story, I stand in awe. If not…
…I.AM.NOT.MAKING.THIS.UP.!!! there are a lot of people reproducing that don’t give a crap about their offspring. This kid is probably about 6-7 years old today. In our department a requisition is printed out with the name of the patient to be X-rayed. The tech who recieved the paperwork showed the rest of the techs/x-ray students the name listed.
Frankly if you don’t believe people are naming their children these horrible names I am going to assume that you are not exposed to people who go to charity hospitals in a poor city. Two weeks ago we had a little girl come in named Veijana. Someone else got to call her name in the lobby.
Maybe is is a Latino name: Vay-HANA ?