"Weird Names"

strange names dont bother me, what bothers me is when then spell it phonically wrong and get mad when everyone messes it up. I know someone with a kynide. I am sorry but if you sound that out it does not spell "Kennedy".

Anyone can name their kids what they want and spell it how they want, but I have to agree with Jen C that one can be a bit TOO creative with spelling to the point there is no way to take a wild guess at pronunciation without getting it wrong. And, for all you know, the name is meant to be pronounced the way it's spelled, it's just nothing you've ever encountered before.

I took a call from a woman at a professional business office very recently and felt a bit embarrassed when I asked her to repeat her name twice and finally spell it. She said, "My name is Jellow. Like Mellow, but with a J".

I had certainly never heard that one before.

Actually there aren't any what I would consider unique names in my 4 year old's class. There is an Alexander who goes by Lex. A Dandre. An Evone (a boy).

I recently met a little girl named Juniper.

Since picking a "unique" name is so popular it ceases to be unique, right?

I think there is a big difference between legitimate cultural diversity or choosing unusual but correctly spelled names (both good things) and butchering a name or coming up with a ridiculous non-name to be "unique" - that just smacks of ignorance and immaturity. To those parents, I want to just say "you are not naming a pet or a stuffed animal, you are naming a person who will have to live with that name." Naming a child after a cartoon character, an inanimate object, mis-spelling a normal name or taking a normal name and changing the pronunciation are really poor decisions. I do judge parents who do this as naming a child is a significant decision - why try to darn hard to be "unique"?

I usually don't bother replying to the name threads where people want to name their children terrible things, but know that when people read your child's name, they're not thinking "oh, how lovely and unique" they're thinking "oh this poor kid what were the idiot parents thinking?" and are laughing at you but are hopefully too polite to do it to your face and don't take it out on your child.

I really hope this is a trend that reverses itself. Some of the names I've seen here are just beyond silly and I'm so embarrassed for the children who have to live with them. I could list the worst offenders but that would be too mean.

@JessinTexas...Jacob has been the number 1 boys' name since 1999. Isabella has been in the top 10 for almost 10 years. These have nothing to do with Twilight.

I thank God I don't have an unusual name. Neither do my children. My daughter's name is spelled with a 'y' instead of an 'i' - however - when we went on vacation when she was a child - we could still find something with her name spelled correctly.

I worked at Kindercare. There was a girl who had a "unique" name. She hated it. She was 7 years old and in her words "sick and tired of correcting people and having to spell her name." so she chose a name for herself. She chose Rachel. If you called her by the name her mother gave her - she wouldn't answer. Her mother came in one day when I had called her Rachel and chewed me up one side and down the other. The girl said "M. - STOP IT!! I hate my name! I want to be called Rachel." The mother apologized to me and left crying.

At our school we have Wead (pronounced Weed). Wa'am (it's a cultural name) pronounced We-ahm...there are now probably 4 Neaveh's (urgh). One boy's name is Romulus.

Older names have come back - we have a Hank and a Jack. Theodore (he goes by Teddy). I mentioned once before about a personal friend who was named Richard Dick....it was brutal for him.

I just urge parents to THINK before they name their child. Your child WILL be unique in their own personality. You don't need to make life hard on them by naming them something "unique" or worse - spelling them different so people are always pronouncing the name wrong and the child is always correcting people...this puts the spotlight on the child and some kids do NOT like to be the center of attention. You won't know that at birth - but later - it could come back to bite you.

For me, it's not so much the unusual names (although some make me say "Whaaaat?") but the combination of names. For instance, why someone with a specific last name would tack on a particular first name that makes it odd. We knew a family whose last name was White. They named their daughter snow. London with a last name of Bridges. Robbin with a last name of Droppings. And one particular kid with the last name of Lick whose parents decided to give him Crumb for a middle name.

Niles Crumb Lick.

These aren't urban legends. These are people we knew. It still boggles the mind for me.

Your name is the ultimate first impression so I think parents should choose wisely. Unique isn't bad, but names not well thought out almost always are.

The only people I asked their opinion on was my A. and uncle. Because their daughter died during child birth and I wanted to name my daughter Sydney...but I didn't want that spelling. So we changed the spelling to Sydnee and it totally fits her personality.

I didn't ask what others thought of my son's name and it's spelling either because I don't care what they think. Yes he will have a "hard time" when it comes to pronouncing it but it is the correct Celtic spelling and not the lettuce spelling. Cael vs Kale.

I love hearing unique names, I love hearing traditional names...but most of of all I love to hear the stories as to why these names were chosen.

What is traditional now may not be traditional in the future. I didn't change the spelling because everyone was doing it...we did it because both my husband and I spell our more "traditional" names different than the norm.

I am remembered more often because of the uniqueness than anything.

I think the worst I've ever heard was....are you ready?....Placentia. It boggles my mind. & the mom was given a full explanation as to what a placenta was....& she still chose this for her daughter. Yuck.

My oldest son is 24, so I've seen quite a few unusual names &/or spellings:

Racheal....with traditional pronunciation
Nathalie...again, traditional pronunciation
Aydyn, Aidin
Ryder, Hudson, Paxton for boys
Reagan, Peyton for girls
Kiowa, Storm, Slater for boys
Jerica, Rebekka, Alienna, Breck, Atienna for girls
Dalten, Daltin....for Dalton
Sevanna, Raylyn for girls

& for a real hoot, check out the registry list for the recent Warrior Dash! http://www.warriordash.com/results/2012_New_Mexico_Sat_AG...

I am sure in part it is where you live. Around here those that want unusual go with traditional names that aren't used as much. My youngest is Genevieve, named after her great grandma that passed away when her grandpa was only 16. The hospital I had her at has a tradition of putting the newborn's footprint on the wall with their name above it. By the time we left the hospital there were three or four more Genevieves on the wall.

Occasionally we get someone using an i where a y should be but that is about as exciting as we get.

My youngest had a softball game last week and we were commenting about how you can always tell if you are playing a team from a certain area by the name. We were being bad I assure you but when you hear someone cheer for an Amber or Chrystal you know where the team comes from. There is definitely a cultural norm to naming kids.

So far nothing too crazy in my son's school (Chicago Suburbs), we live in a mostly Mexican area and most of those names are traditional so I do not think I am going to run into too many off the wall names here, but good thing names can be changed.

Oh, but Lemonjello and Orangello are twins I knew in Dallas! It was there names unless she was pulling my leg when introducing them.

Heard today on the radio that Sofia/Sophia and Bella were top two girl names and Mason and Jacob were top two boy names. Interesting that Bella and Jacob are both popular b/c of a movie. I mean, it's a movie (Twilight). Fiction. Pretend. But your child is real. I love the name Bella, but now will NOT use it for a future child b/c of it's popularity. I wonder how many kids will be named Katniss or Peeta or Cinna or Gale or Prim this year (Hunger Games).

Saw a kid's name today at MOPS - Cullen (again, from Twilight?)

@JB. I could see Isabella being a top name. As well as jacob. But top two? Eh. Whatever. I'm still not naming my child that anytime soon, no matter how beautiful a name I think it is.

At my 3rd grader's school, I actually find it funny the people that want to try and be different but end up making up names by rhyming words with actual names. There are like 10 different kids I know named something that rhymes with Aiden. I don't care what people name their kids...they are theirs to name. We have chosen somewhat unique names for our children, but they all mean something special to us and we didn't just make up a name just to be different. To each his own though.

I have 2 students right now with seriously funny names, can't say what they are without risking trouble but when your last name is an actual name of an object...it is cruel to give a first name that goes with the object. For example, if your last name is Rice, don't name your child Wild or cuter even Wyld....cruel. The living example in my class is an even bigger whopper than that!

As for spelling, I have a daughter named Aryn. She LOVES her unique spelling and it totally fits her personality. Wouldn't change it for the world!

Yes! You should hear some of the names my kids tell me. My son has a slight speech problem and I thought he was messing up the names...nope!....he was saying them correctly. I sometimes wanna ask people what they were smoking when they thought up that name :P I get being different, mine have unique names, but they are not off the wall and the spelling is correct. A friend of mine named her daughter Semaj! Her father's name was James, so this was in homage to him. People need to think about what's going to happen when these kids look for jobs as adults. Famous ppl...their kids will never have normal jobs anyway so its a little different but still odd.

I'm just waiting to see if someone writes you one of those nasty posts, (as you put it) asking how dare you name your child one of these names, even when your post makes it clear that you aren't. (And then blasts people when they tell the person that they have misunderstood, and continue to berate you.)

It happened just last week - I should take bets!

Like you, M. B, I like traditional names. I think that I mostly like them because I can't remember the more "unique" ones. As a substitute teacher, having a classroom full of names I could scarcely pronounce meant a list of kids' names in front of me and butchering them when I called out to see if they were present. The kids laughed, I laughed and apologized, and we all had a good time. But alas, I never learned their names unless it reminded me of something on TV or a movie, like Nobu from Aladdin. The only name in the whole class that I remembered the next semester and could call him by name when I saw him in the hallway!

I can remember Peter, Paul and Mary any ol' day, but that isn't what I was working with!

Dawn

We're not in school yet but I have noticed it in my mamma's group. It seems people either follow celebrities or opt to be so different, I pray it doesn't backfire on the kid!

I guess ordinary names will become the new "different!"

I think I'm in a little pocket of people who are striving for the opposite. We wanted very traditional names. But, for both of our kids, DH and I put our short list of names into the social security website, looking for the most popular names of the last couple of years, and took those off our list.

It seems that we've sort of gravitated towards other folks who are like-minded with traditional names - and few nicknames, either.

And they all have traditional spellings, too. Although, a nod to Aunt Mel-Mel - I'll admit we went with the French spelling of our daughter's name instead of the English; to us, when the name was anglicized, the spelling isn't as pretty as the original French.

Kristina - I've heard of Orangello and Lemonjello. A girlfriend's mom claims to have been the OB nurse who delivered them...are these poor guys an urban legend? But my MIL worked for an inner-city pediatrician - her favorite was Carhonda. I'll bet you can guess where she was conceived.

Here in the Chicago area it is VERY VERY diverse, so the kids' names at our school are all across the board. We have an Arabic last name, so we opted to give our kids simple, Christian first names. I can't tell you how many times my husband with his Arabic first and last name has been "randomly selected" for special screening at the airport.

I say be unique in the first name if your last name isn't burdensome :)

i remember an old MAD magazine cartoon. a crowd of people with complacent smiles were all holding signs that said 'in sameness there is strength.' the next frame had one person standing apart with a sign that said 'i'm different.' in the next there were two crowds, the second with signs reading 'i'm different?'
:)
unique names used to be....well, unique.
now they're mostly just weird and annoying.
but we still need something other than bobs and jennifers. viva la difference!
a dear friend's name is 'cherie.' i don't know how to do accents, but hers is on the final E, so it SHOULD read 'sherry-AY' but no, it's the french-pronounced 'shur-EE.' every time i see that stupid misplaced accent it makes me do a tiny inward seethe.
:) khairete
S.

The kids have had these in classes:
a little girl named Aysia, pronounced Asia like the continent.
Treyhton
Mollee, Rylee, Ashlee, Maloree - what is with the double ee trend?
Blaize - a boy
Durango - a boy

My son has a very traditional name; we didn't meet another kid with the name till he was 6. We would introduce him and people would say "my great uncle" or "my great grandpa" was named xxxx. My daughter's name is unusual, but not really unique, and is a real name spelled the traditional way.

I have to laugh at this because my brother gave me such a hard time when I had my daughter 2.5 years ago. I named her Maggie! Isn't that just a hoot? He said she would be made fun of for having an old fashioned name. But, hey, at least we can spell it and say it right?

My daughter's school has plenty of traditional names -- it's just that some of them are traditional for other cultures! It's fun learning those names, and educational.

The ones that bother me, which I really don't see in her school but on the news or online, etc., are names that sound patently made-up, or names that are typical Anglo-American names but intentionally spelled so "unusually" that the children will be cursed with spelling--and explaining them--for the rest of their lives.

I had to laugh when I saw you mention kids whose names are spelled the "right" way but pronounced another way. This goes farther back than today's trends! When I was in high school there was a girl whose name was spelled Regina. She insisted it be spelled that way but pronounced "Renee." Say what? But this was her own choice, at least -- her mom certainly called her Ree-gina; the girl was looking to be different and did this herself!

My first daughters name is Gwendolynn , very uncommon, not made up, but uncommon none the less. I like unique names. I don't make up my kids names from scratch but I do make sure they are not overused.

My high school friends with weird names :
Herson Patricia ( a boy)
Antonius Christina ( a boy, again)
Denise Mambu ( mambu means smelly )
Vanina ( sounds like ours)
Shine Evangelical ( this one is my friend's daughter, her hubby is a priest)
Pretty
Sweetie
Niki Ayu ( means this one pretty), thankfully the girls with name above are truly pretty and kind
Anakmu Lelaki Hoed ( because that's what the mother said after the birth, means : Your Child Is a Boy Hoed ( Hoed is the hubby name), btw this is an actress case, not my friend
Forrester Day ( a girl)
Lina Antar Negara ( means Lina inter countries, we always thought she must have been born on the international flight ^^)

I live in a very homogenous town-I think our diversity is something like .6%. I haven't noticed many of the names that I read on this board in my kids classes. Like names that are total misspellings of real names that will do nothing but trouble the child all its life. Not a lot of "traditional: names either though. Mostly names like Mason, Carson, Madison, Mackenzie.

A-freaking-men :)

I ABHOR it when they pick a normal name and purposely misspell it, it doesn't look creative to me in the slightest, just like you don't know how to spell, which makes you and therefore your kid appear to be unintelligent. I don't get it!! I grew up with a name that's hard to pronounce or spell and still dislike it.

I agree, the creative/unique names are so trendy there is nothing special about them anymore. Old school names are more unusual now than ever. What was the last time you saw someone name their baby "Jennifer" or "Sarah"?!

All this creativity & the names are a far cry from what they used to be & are unrecognizable & unpronounceable.

I work for a University and some of the names I see just blow my mind!!! My brother gave me a hard time when I was carrying my oldest. He said that he didn't think I should not strap my child with that name he would have a hard time learning how to even spell it. His name is Donavan. He was able to spell his entire name backwords before he started school. But yes sometimes I think that parents were on something when they chose a name.

I appreciate different names.. Probably because my son's name is different. Banyan :)
My son's class actually has pretty normal names. The only different one's are:
Rowan
Zander
Trew
As long as the name isn't tortuous, I can appreciate it...(IE: like Sugar, steak, Thimble, crazy names like that.. I can't appreciate those)

Really? Spelling a name "differently" makes someone seem unintelligent? Wow. And who says a name has a "real" spelling? Don't "traditional" names have to be "created" at some time? Did you know "Wendy" was a made up name at one point?

I guess I'm a little sensitive about this since my girls have "unique" names with different spellings. I don't think it makes them or me appear unintelligent or uneducated. And I don't think that it sets them up for any teasing.

My parents named me a "normal" (although sorta old-fashioned) name because they came to the States from an Asian country and they thought it would make it easier. I don't think it really made a difference. People "expected" my name to be "Asian" and always misheard me anyway (and no, i don't have an accent.

My daughters' classmates seem to have mostly traditional names. Off the top of my head, their friends are Beatrice, Emily, Mia, Ella, Lindsey, Molly, Melissa, Jessica, Kate, Mary, Anna, Louisa, Sophie, Natasha, Jennifer... pretty standard stuff. The weirdest names we've come across are Jahnai and Payton (both girls), and those aren't exactly "out there." This is an extremely diverse group in terms of race, ethnicity, and religion, by the way (although all upper-middle class), so it seems like traditional or more old-fashioned names are the order of the day around here.