I once knew a man named Frederick Kroger. He’s probably around 55 now. He used to go by Freddy until A Nightmare on Elm Street came out. Now he only goes by Fred. (To make things funny, Kroger and Krueger are variants of the same last name.)
I also know a Jessica Simpson. She goes by Jessie most of the time since she hates getting references to the celebrity Jessica Simpson. And she’s nothing like the famous bimbo:D. This girl has very dark hair. She’s also very smart and gets good grades.
Sometimes a name with a pleasant meaning in one language is a negative word in another. I think Zina is an unfortunate name. I’m Muslim, and in Islam “zina” means adultery. I once saw it as the name of a Russian woman mentioned on a news station:confused:. Though I think Zina is a Russian nickname for something, so it’s fine to them.
New Hampshire is full of fun ones… we had a congressman named Dick Swett. There is an insurance agent in Merrimack NH named Dick Tingloff.
I once had to set up a Blackberry account for a fellow named Mohammed Jihad. I thought it was a joke at first, but upon checking with the corporate directory, and HR, determined that it was a very unfortunate name combination for a post 9/11 environment.
I don’t believe it, either. Sorry if the rolleyes weren’t clear–they were directed at the whole story of the minority baby with the vulgar English name with a different pronunciation urban legend.
While teaching English in Moscow, I got a new student one night: Olesiya Vagina. All I could think of to say when I read her registration card was “Are you sure your name is spelled correctly…?”
I was told later that her last name came from the Ukrainian word for “scales” (like “Libra”), akin to the German word Waage.
I was a records clerk in an Army Reserve unit, and there was one woman whose father had obviously wanted a boy but didn’t get on. The jerk seemed to have wanted a kid named after himself, is my guess.
Just the name itself isn’t enough to hang all your conclusions on.
Feminizing a father’s name is very common. In fact, it’s a tradition that goes at least as far back as the Romans. Every woman was named after her father. So all of Claudius’s daughters were named Claudia.
A huge chunk of traditional European women’s names are just feminized masculine names – Antonia, Andrea, Charlene, Thomasina, Wilhelmina, Roberta, Georgina, Victoria, Jane, Jacqueline, Adriana, Alexandra, etc.
And it’s now fairly popular among African-Americans who are generally disposed towards inventing new names.
But my favorite funny name is, and will always be, Randy Bender. I love it because it’s quite probably that as an American, he has no idea what’s funny about his name.
“Lindsay” took off in a big way as a girl’s name when Lindsay Wagner became “The Bionic Woman.”
There was a recent local story about a woman who stole a $900 money order. Her first name was Shatonia–pretty close to the Shitonya, Sh’tonya names that show up in FOAF accounts.
What about NBA starPenny Hardaway , who’s given name is “Anfernee”?
An acquaintance of mine said he went to school with the son of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Elroy Face’s son, Richard. Another zero points for this kid’s nickname…
