mamadeb

My name *is* Debra, you know. The "Jennifer" of my generation, as it were.
I don't remember minding terribly. Of course, now it's becoming a fiesty middle aged lady name (Debbie on QAF, Debbie on West Wing) and, well. *Sigh*. I knew it was going to happen.

But my parents deliberately chose a common name to balance the uncommon last name, for which I thank them.

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otherdeb.livejournal.com

And there is something wrong with Deb (Debbie, Deborah, Debra) being a feisty, middle-aged lady name?

BTW, you should have posted a spew warning on this. Took me 10 minutes to get the cookie and tea crumbs off the monitor.

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Those sites always simultaneously amuse me -- because a lot of the names are bad -- and make we want to smack the people who wrote them -- because they are seemingly compelled, in order to be funny, not to just say, look, these names are bad, but to pretend to refer to some sort of set of principles of naming which they are basically making up on the spot. It usually takes me about a page and a half to confirm that my name does not meet their standards.

I apologise, but may I rant mildly in your journal?

Hi. My name is Marna Rae Nightingale.

1) Yes, my parents NAMED me that.
2) It's on my birth certificate.
3) I quite like it, actually.
4) It's really not that hard to spell, say, or find the history of Marna as a first name, if you care.
5) "Oh I'm so sorry" is not an acceptable response to an introduction.
6) Neither is "Why did your parents name you THAT?"

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norabombay.livejournal.com

You hava legit name.

I see no reason to complain unless they named you Mau'rn'a

I'm cool with most thngs, but very very messed up spellings- see Madison, Mikala and the like get old.

My friend named her baby Katelynn.

Caitlin is a fine name. But she should have picked a simpler spelling.

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Um.

I'm not complaining about my name, you will note.
I'm actually complaining about, well,

"You have a legit name." Almost as much as the obverse.

Not because I don't know what you mean. Or think your intentions are anything but stellar. But, um, yes, thank you, I know that. It goes back several thousand years, you see.

For that matter, Benet has an entirely legitimate name.

Like "There were Benets in the Domesday Book" legitimate.

It's just that both of us have had to endure several decades of people either sympathising with us about our names or being downright rude about them, to the point where baby name sites mostly make us go 'ah-heh-heh-heh.'

Because while they are ranting on about how cruel _kids_ will be -- they are acting like exactly the sort of adult I am more or less completely burnt out on coping with.

Yes, kids will make fun of other kids.

Adults are not actually meant to make fun of other adults, at least, not on first introduction. It shows a grevious want of conduct -- and no, I know quite well that no-one here would do that. As I said, I'm just venting my spleen gently among friends, as Gods know I'm never going to succeed in fixing the problem.

I mean, people DO actually say to us 'Why did your parents name you THAT?' And worse. Amazingly worse. Mind-blowingly worse.

I'm tempted to give my hypothetical child an odd name just so that they will learn by age 6 -- as I did -- that if your playmate wishes to be addressed as Serenity Moonbeam, you just call them that, learn to say it, learn to spell it, and shut up about it, it's not funny, if you want to get a laugh make a joke.

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You have a perfectly normal name. Marna is spelled in the most common way, and you have the normal spelling of "Rae" for a woman.

I have other friends named Marna. I'm confused.

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Well, yes. That's sort of the crux of it for me, I think:

There are some bad names out there, it's very true. And a fine old tradition is it, too: Horatia?

But the main logic these collections seem to use is:

1) People will tease them.
2) Nobody will be able to spell it.
3) People will make unwarranted assuptions about the person based on the name
4) People will come up with idiotic nicknames.

And

1) Presumably well-socialized adults make idiotic comments on both my name and Benet's name all the time. At best, trite ones.

2) Despite the fact that we have both given up and taken to periodically *spelling our names when we introduce ourselves*, practically nobody can spell our names correctly. Or apparently bothers to try.

3) I am not Irish, nor Jewish, nor the daughter of hippies, nor did I change my name as an adult. Benet is not French. I am, as it happens, distantly related to Florence Nightingale, but it's not a topic I want to discourse intelligently about on demand.

4) I do not answer to Marn, nor Marnie, nor any variant therof. Benet does not answer to Ben, nor to Benet pronounced in the French fashion.

It tends to undercut the logical universe of the whole "silly baby names" argument, that's all. People, in my observation, will behave badly and stupidly about names.

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How do you feel about "would sound and/or look stupid as the name of a Supreme Court Justice [or other serious occupation]" as a reason?

Almost all of the names people give their kids to be "unique" fail that test horribly. There are plenty of unusual or old-fashioned or whatever names that *don't* fail that test. I don't think it's the unusual-ness or the difficulty of spelling of certain names that bothers a lot of people - it's not what bothers me at any rate, nor the teasing of children, as children will find just about any reason to tease. It's that some names are just flat-out stupid to my eye or ear.

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Um, that depends. Are you going to walk up to me and advance said reason on first introduction?

Because clearly MY name is stupid to many eyes and ears.

Apparently we are not all using the same test. There are some names I dislike, and some I think are idiotic, yes.

But you know, if we could all just go back to "what's in a name", possibly both the apparent need of people to give their kids odd monickers and the apparent need of other people to be opinionated about people's names would BOTH diminish,

Not that it's going to happen, but everyone needs a lost cause or two...

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Um, that depends. Are you going to walk up to me and advance said reason on first introduction?

No. First off, that's rude; second off, I think your name is perfectly normal.

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ataniell93.livejournal.com

Who decides what the Supreme Court Justices' names should sound like?

A lot of this--a very lot of it--has to do with race. When you have a mental picture of Lakeisha or Jamal, you're not picturing the sort of person who normally gets appointed. But you know, people with 'weird' names make it in society, too. Condoleezza Rice, there's a good one. Joycelyn Elders, too. Both of those names would be mocked by the people on that website.

I disliked my very common name and changed it to something less common, partly because of the mental image a lot of people associated with that name due to a couple of other people who had it. (Do not ask me. I won't tell you.)

I think some of the 'inventive' spellings of perfectly fine names such as Mackenzie and Madison (I have two friends named Madison) are unattractive to look at, but you know...when I looked through that site I saw a number of perfectly nice ethnic names being mocked, names like Gwyneira or Lyra.

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Some of it, I'm sure, has to do with race. On the other hand, a lot...doesn't, either. (I don't see why Rice's or Elders's name would come in for mockery. They're both unusual enough to maybe raise an eyebrow at the spellings, but they're not, you know, Krystynne. Neither would make me even blink attached to "Supreme Court Justice..." -- well, OK, I'd blink if it were Rice, but that is because I hate her.) *shrug* There are people with unusual ("ethnic" or not) first names that are unusual without being stupid. It's the stupidity that gets me.

(And what ethnicity are you calling Gwyneira and Lyra? "Gwyneira" sounds like "stupid white chick trying to be all Arthurian or something with the kid's name" to me. "Lyra" is entirely bland and could belong to almost anyone.)

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vass

2) Despite the fact that we have both given up and taken to periodically *spelling our names when we introduce ourselves*, practically nobody can spell our names correctly. Or apparently bothers to try.

Oh, I can sympathise.

I do the same thing, and get the same response. Ditto pronounce. For both my names.

I sometimes get people assuming my name's a speshul, made-up spelling of the English name it sounds close to, too. It's not. There are heaps of Italian, Spanish, Eastern European, *goes on at length* people with my given name, and have been for centuries. There's a Renaissance opera with my given name as one of the title roles.

And then my surname. It's a variant on kippeh. As in yarmulke. Now that I've explained this, please do not consider this blanket permission to move on to the next person and ask them why they have a funny surname. *winds down rant*

Ahem. I meant to say that you're not alone.

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Comrade!

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"I sometimes get people assuming my name's a speshul, made-up spelling of the English name it sounds close to, too."

I always love that. Do they have the cheek to offer you sympathy?

On the bright side, I've gotten that ah-heh-heh-heh-are-you-quite-done? thing down to an art form...

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ataniell93.livejournal.com

"I sometimes get people assuming my name's a speshul, made-up spelling of the English name it sounds close to, too."

I get that a lot. My name is Japanese. People can't spell it unless I tell them that first, because if I don't, they don't listen, they just do that guessing thing that cellphones do when you try to type on them, and decide that it's an English name they know. If I tell them it's Japanese first they always comment on how it's spelled exactly like it sounds (like everything else in Japanese) and how easy it is (which it is).

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...what English name does your name sound close to?

Maybe it's just that I know about 6 other people with your name, but I'm finding that a bizarre thought.

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valarltd.livejournal.com

I hate odd names with a passion.
I have a common name with an uncommon spelling: Angelia. (Angela)
I have been misspelled, mispronounced and annoyed for 37 years.

I gave all my children common names:
Victoria, Christopher, Jonathan and Olivia
They still get misspelled by creative spellers. (Jonathon is most common)

We have a stuffy British surname. Nonsense names don't fit well.

Besides, made-up names and spellings are pure torture for teachers, nurses and anyone else who will deal with your child. As is giving the wrong gender of name. A girl named Taurus (Bull) is just cruelty. Worse, the child was named for the car, and not the constellation.

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Tell me about mispelling "Jonathan". My husband is very posessive about his name. I get all the rants. (Spelling my name "Deborah", otoh, or "Debby" bothers me very little. Unless you happen to my my inlaws, who should know better.)

The most egregious is "Johnathan." "John" comes from "Yochanon". "Jonathan" comes from Y'honatan or Yonatan. These are not the same name. Putting that "h" there makes very little sence.

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ariestess

Ahahahahahahahahahahahhaa!!!!

I always adore a good laugh from that site....

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amedia.livejournal.com

The responses on this have been very interesting - this seems to be a subject that more people care about more deeply than I, for one, ever realized.

What is wrong with having a common name? It hasn't hurt anyone I know.

I have a very common first name and married a man with an extremely common last name. I can't tell you how many times I've given my name over the phone or whatever and people have said, "Yeah, right," as if I were using an unimaginative alias. It can actually cause problems with restaurant reservations, when someone with the same last name shows up just before we do and snags the table... we use my maiden name for that sort of thing.

We gave our son an unusual first name and a common middle name, so he could choose when he got older, but he likes the first name and has kept it. It really did seem to help, when he was younger, that there were a lot of kids his age with unusual names.

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thessaliad.livejournal.com

Considering all the weird names in my biofather's family, I'm lucky my parents decided to name me after my father. He had a french last name, and they gave me french female versions of his first and middle names. Euphonious, and classy, and fairly spellable. Too bad I traded the last name for an unspellable German one.

My husband wanted to name my son a manly name...Roland. Instead of Thomas. *cough* I told him that it was bully bait, and would not sound well with Olson. We would have had our own Rolie-polie-Olie!

I had to threaten to name my son Uff-da Olson (Uff-da! is the Scan equivalent of Oy!) unless he seriously helped find a name, or just let me pick. He let me pick.

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ginamariewade.livejournal.com

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

My son's name is Jacob. Simple, earnest, straightforward. Hebrew name is Ya'akov. None of this sekrit initial password crap. (Like his cousin named Benjamin whose Hebrew name is Baruch, or his other cousin Jordan whose Hebrew name is Yeheskel.)

But then on *my* side, my cousins named their kids stupid things. McKay. He's not named after anybody, his parents just liked the name. Another one is Kale. Like the cabbage. I call him Coleslaw.

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villeinage.livejournal.com

I have a pet peeve with popularly mispronounced names co-opted from other cultures, i.e. 'Caitlin' prounounced as 'Kate-Lynne.' It just irks me.

And I knew of a girl named 'Yvonne'--pronounced 'Why-Vone-knee.'

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fernwithy.livejournal.com

I like to hit a happy medium. My RL name, Barbara, is one I don't like on aesthetic principles--in a Western New York accent, where r's are hit so hard that we sound like a reverberating gong when we talk, it comes out sounding like a kid pretending to bark, arr, arr--but I can't argue with my mom's reasoning. Not only is it a family name, grabbed from an immigrant ancestor, it's also uncommon enough in my age group that I never had to deal with a lot of other Barbaras, but not so weird that anyone ever said, "Your name is what?" No name prevents teasing, and you never know what it's going to be. My last name begins with Wa- (no, it's not actually "Walters"), and I spent a lot of time known to other students at school as Ba-ba Wa-Wa, after the SNL Barbara Walters take. And of course, one of my friends called me "Blarf." You can't prevent that.

That said, I do have a fondness for unusual names. Not flakey New Agey ones, but just kind of neat, different ones. I love going through old genealogies and finding family names that haven't been used for awhile. We had generations of Elhanans in the family, but it hasn't been used since the early 1800s. I probably couldn't get away with it as a first name--what on Earth would it nick' down to?--but I'm thinking it would make a fine middle name. Of course, we also haven't had a John in the family in Lord knows how long, and that was the first name in that branch of the family. And I like virtue names, as long they're words that can be nicked into more normal variants if the kid ends up not wanting to stick out. (Eg, a "Reconcile" could become "Connie" without much fuss.)

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cellio

I have a name that is uncommon but not weird. That worked out ok. I don't think I would have minded being one of the many Jennifers or Loris, though of course I'll never know.

"Weird" names, into which category I lump all of the "creative" spellings as well as company/product names like Mercedes and Tiffany, are another matter. I don't know what possesses parents to saddle a kid with a handicap that just keeps on giving. I have enough trouble with people not being able to spell or pronounce my last name (only six letters, not some long tongue-twister); if I had to patiently explain that the first name was Katelynn (not Caitlin) or Jolaynne (what?) or something like that, it'd get annoying really quickly.

Real names from other cultures have the potential to be confusing too, of course, but at least there's some real origin and the person encountering the name for the first time may learn something. Some people might think Ranjani is weirder than Kellyna Nychole, but I disagree.

If someone wants to take a "creative" name as an adult (I know someone whose legal name is "Animal X"; no, I don't know how that's alphabetized), go for it. But I wish parents would show just a little restraint when naming children. Really, there's nothing wrong with Robert or Jacob or Susan or Rebecca. Nothing at all!

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chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com

One of my cousins was named "Susan Rebecca" because her parents figured no one could possibly make fun of that name. In school she became "Sue R.", which, when said quickly, mutated into "sewer". So much for that idea.

I know another family with two kids with interesting middle names and more standard first names. As kids they were known by their middle names, Hickory (boy) and Willow (girl), and one still uses that while the other has since switched to using their first name.

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But Mercedes is a perfectly respectable, rather old-fashioned girl's name; the car company was named after Emil Jellinek's daughter, Mercedes Jellinek.

Tiffany was, and is, a surname, and using surnames as first names, espcially family surnames, is common in many places. I've known a fair number of MacKenzies and Camerons and Kerrs and Marshalls and such and never found it especially odd.

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ataniell93.livejournal.com

Actually, Tiffany is a good old fashioned name as well. Tiphaine is the original spelling and I believe it means 'crown' but it's been spelled Tiffany for over 100 years. Now don't get me started on Typhani, Tiffani, etc.

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You know, I saw that as Tympani.

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sethg

The geneologies in the Bible have all sorts of interesting names that, for some reason or another, nobody seems to use today. I'm still trying to sell my wife on "Chatzarmavet". :-)

My own name, "Seth", is not too uncommon, and it's straight outta the Bible. Unfortunately, the Hebrew equivalent, "Sheit", not only gave me no end of grief in Hebrew school, but in modern Hebrew, it means "rear end".

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geekosaur

And then, of course, you could be given a nice mid-list name, rare enough that you rarely if ever run into someone else with the same name, but not especially weird — and then, sometime in your mid-20s, suddenly half the kids running around loose in the supermarket have the same name because a character with that name showed up on a soap opera or something. ("Brandon")

At which point I was heartily wishing I'd been given a rarer/weirder name. :/

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persis.livejournal.com

Spencer and I were both named after someone. Talis is also named after someone. We *all* have unusual names; they are *always* commented on, and are very often misspelled, or mis-gendered. Our last names are all different, as I kept my maiden name, and Talis is a not hyphenated joint name, so we always know when a salesperson is calling when they ask for Mrs. Love or Mr. Thorndike. And I know it is either the school or the pesiatrician's office calling when they ask for Mrs. Thorndike Love.

I grew up with many *other* common names; Sarah, Elizabeth, Diane, Susan, Linda were some of the girl's names; I don't remember too many common boys names other that Michael and Robert.

I have a collection of Persis's that I have met or known of over the years; it numbers over 12. Persis is Greek, Persian, Hindu, and New Testament, but is not found in many of the baby name books.

Talis gets teased not only for her name, but for her other interests that are unusual; science, liking animals and insects, getting her hair cut (happened back in Kindergarten, and now she doesn't want to get her hair cut again...)

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