Unusual baby names.

We gave all of our children very traditional names with traditional spellings. I feel sorry for the kids with really odd names or odd spellings. I didn't read the article or any studies about it, but I can't help but think that they will be treated differently b/c of their names in school, when looking for a job, etc. My DH graduated from high school with a girl named Bambi. She is now a doctor and it just seems like such an unprofessional name.

 

My sister's name is Karis, which I have always found so pretty. For the 1960's it was pretty unorthodox. She never had any trouble with it though. I have had more trouble with my name and getting people to spell it right. (that started when I moved to the US)

 

I don't know if my daughter's name is unusual? But we decided at the last minute after narrowing down 3 of the names we wanted. But I wanted to honor my mother's wish. She wrote in several favorite names in her Bible (I never knew about it) when she passed away.

My husband wanted no more names of "John" because it runs in his family name. However, he wanted to keep the 'J' as first letter. When we found out we were having twins. We thought it might be Justin Lawrence and Josh Patrick. But to our surprised we had a girl/boy.

These were 3 top names for the girls--
I have always loved the name "Linnea Nicole" but didn't think it would sounds nice with 'Justin'

and then we thought maybe, 'Kerianna Jean' but I never like having 'nick names' since it wouldn't be fair for her because 'Justin' isn't a nick name.

and that when I found out my mom's list; she liked the name 'Orianna' but I couldn't pronounce it. We decided to take off the 'O' and name my daughter Rianna Jean and Justin Lawerence.

It was after having them at home and all of the suddenly people thought her name is Brianna. I have to say the letter first and then say her name. By then people will remember it.

'Jean' is my mother-in-law's middle name 'Sandra Jean' and then 'Lawerence' is my Dad and my father-in-law's middle name.

I realized there are so many names coming out with 'Rianna, Rhiannon, Ryann, and etc".

 

My mom was a labor & delivery nurse and she said the oddest one she saw was FaMolly spelled like Female. I agree with pp, it may have started as urban legend but once those names (like Lemonjello, Orangejello and La-sha) are talked about there are invetiably people who give those kid's those names and thus they are no longer just legend.

I went very traditional, but one thing that I tried to keep in mind was spelling. My name is spelled differently and I just wanted to give my daughter the most common way to spell her name since we are already setting her up for problems by calling her exclusively by a nickname (she is named on her birth certificate Mary Kathryn after dh's mom who passed but we have never called her that and when they do at the pediatrician it takes a minute for me to realize who they are talking to)!

 

My XH grew up with a girl named Crystal. Her full name was Crystal Shanda Lear. (I know this is true, I met her..lol.) Her parents did this on purpose and got a lot of people saying how creative they were.

 

I did this too. My now XH was picking boy names and I would have to add them to the last name to see how they sounded. Some of the names I vetoed were Duncan, Patton, Booth, and Logan. (Our last name is Boyle) Along with the girl's names Selena, Elektra and Barbara.

 

We have an Orion. The reason we have an Orion is that DH is soooo picky about boys names and actually suggested Icarrus. When I vetoed an Icky baby, I quickly realized that put on perspective, Orion isn't so bad. We have had people pronounce it as Or E On or they think we spell it O'Ryan, but on the whole I am glad we did it. If when he's older he wants to fit in more, he can use his middle name. It's Michael.

 

Snittens, I TRULY hope you are not trying to turn this into a racist discussion based on your comment. I don't appreciate your comment at all. I don't care if a kid's name is O'Connor or L'Keisha.... The correct usage of an apostrophe is not in a kid's first name. How about a period? Or an exclamation point? Or a percent sign???

 

How can you say the correct usage is not to use an apostrophe in a name? There are many people who have had them, and many times it is because a name from another country is being transliterated into English. Other languages use sounds that don't exist in English, and an apostrophe is one way to add an accent to a syllable.

 

An apostrophe is a perfectly acceptable thing to use in a name. It shows that letters are missing and the word has been contracted. Or as Sharon said, it's often used in foreign names when the letters don't exactly match up to our alphabet. An exclamation point is used to denote a clicking sound in other languages, but I don't know if it would be considered an acceptable character on birth certificates and such.
Why is an apostrophe OK in a last name, but not a first name?

 

You can't swing a stick without hitting a Sean here .

I actually have a friend that goes by Honey, her given name is Wilhelmina.


I chose Irish names for my children because 1) that's my heritage (and my husband is half irish) and 2) I like most Irish names. Of course, when I named Nolan, my father said something about it being a last name.

I am one who likes more traditional sounding names. I don't get the celebrity craze with the weird names.

 

I'm not sure what there was to be offended about in Kelly's post. I think she pointed something out that is quite true - people (general people) tend to make more of a big deal out of unusual names in minority children. I don't see reason to make more out of her statement than was really there.

 

As a teacher, I have seen some unusual names, but I think it's one of the things that makes each child unique and our school such a neat place to be.

 

Some of the most unusual names I've heard are : Majestyk, Hurricane, Blaze, Annikan, Diamond, Pepper, Harley Ryder, Rocco Danger, Boomchain (has to do with logging and no I'm not kidding!, Wyeth, Ulap, Timber, Ford,Wayland, Tug, D'artagnan K'aayhlt'aa.

I don't mind some unusual names, like I think Rocco Danger is kind of cute! I am not a fan of cutesy names like Honey, Sugar or Precious and I really don't like creative spellings. When we are picking out names we tend to avoid names associated with people who we wouldn't want to be reminded of every time we heard the name. I picked Alexandra because I liked the nickname Alex and thought it sounded sporty, Rea is after my MIL's mom and sister who have both passed. We knew Ashley is an extremely popular name but we loved it so much we didn't care. There are quite a few of them in our very small school but none in her actual classroom. Her middle name is Caitlyn which DH feels I should have spelled Katelynn, but I think the way I spelled it isn't all that unusual.

Alicia was a name I wasn't sure about using but DH liked it and I liked the fact that I didn't know anyone with that name although I know it is quite common. DH feels that I spelled her name wrong he thought it should be Alysha or Aleesha but I have always seen it spelled Alicia and prefer it that way. Her middle name Nicole is after my niece who I am very close with. Blake is a name we both really liked, I've been told it is pretty popular but it must not be in my area because I only know of one kid (in middle school)with that name. We had a hard time deciding between James and Griffin for his middle name but ended up going with Griffin because we both really liked it as did our oldest DD and it is kind of unusual. Also family/friends mentioned calling him BJ if we would have went with James and that would not have been okay with me.

 

a long time ago, while in college, i was waitressing at a sports bar, and before i could take this group's order, one of the guys wrote something down on a napkin and said, "how would you read this?" the napkin said, s h i t h e a d. i told him what it said, and he said, "yeah, i thought that, too. see, i'm a teacher, and today was teh first day, and i was doing roll call, adn that's what i read outloud. unfortunately, it's actually ****h-eed. oops. i think it's time to quit my job. " heehee, :laughing:

 

I have three odd ball name stories...

My brother knew someone in college named Lancelot Knight.

My sister knew someone whose name was Candy Sweet. When her fiancee proposed she initially refused him twice... the reason... his last name was 'Heart.'

My friend named her son Milo... his middle name is Ryder...
just sounds funny... Mi-lo-ryder.

 

As long as we are sharing unusual names I'll share some. These are names of people I have known personally so if snoops says they are fake then snoops needs to do some more snooping

Daisy
Ziv
Bar
Gil (like a fish gill)
Three spelt out. I wonder if a person can be named the actual number "3"

 

I know a Candy also. Don't think her middle name was Sweet though.

 

I've never heard of Ziv, but I would venture it's a foreign name. (Just looked it up, it's Hebrew like I thought). Gil is my brother's best friend's name. His parents are from Israel, I'm assuming it's Hebrew. Bar I've seen used as a - what's the word? Like "Von" or "Di"?, so I guess it could be a name too.
Daisy? What's wrong with that? It's a name.

Yeah, that's in the urban legends too.

 

I have a friends named Zosia... pronounced Zosh-ah

 

I think Cole and Jude are the most normal names in our family. Other than myself, Pam and my DH Gary. Piper is getting more common. I'm pretty sure Berea, Creed, Laud and Jubilee won't have another child in their class with the same name. The names we chose all have to do with our faith, except Cole (he was named before my conversion to Christianity). I like unusual names especially when there is a cool story behind how the parents came up with it.

 

I love Charis, totally have considered it for another girl. Means grace in the Greek. ex. charismatic. And Caedmon's Call was an amazing band!

 

My maiden name is Holden. And we have tossed that around with every pregnancy.

 

I agree with you guys. I don't really see how we can talk about "unusual" names without pointing out that what is unusual in one culture or ethnic group is common in another culture or group. My kids have informal names that are from their Dad's culture. Eli's Nigerian name is Emeka (pronounced eh-mecca) and Mark's Nigerian name is Akholisa (pronounced ack-ho-leesa). Our daughter will probably have the middle name Adora, which is also Nigerian and pronounced just like it is spelled. Akholisa and Adora are not the most popular names, but Emeka is very popular there. If someone else doesn't like those names or thinks they are unusual or weird or whatever, it's really more because of their own ignorance than the fact that the names are "bad."


(You could even talk about how unusual over time--how many jayden's were there 20 years ago.)

 

I know somebody who just had a baby boy and used this name. It's not her maiden name; I'm not sure if it's a family name or not.

 

I thought Grayson was an unusual name... I didn't know of any through out my whole pregnancy.. now I know quite a few

Grandt is my grandmother's maiden name. So it is a last name turned into a first..

Growing up being a Tarin I didn't want my boys to be a "Bob" or something boring and common. And I don't think being Tarin has prohibited me in anyway.

 

Nothing "wrong" with any of the names I shared. I just said they were "unusual" imo.

Gil btw was a girl.

I also consider it unusual to name boys girl names and girls boy names. Not wrong just unusual. I have known men named Michelle, Courtney, Kelly, and Linda

 

I like the name Holden, Pam. Wasn't that a character on sex in the city?

Tarin, I think you caught the trend on Grayson. I have friends/relatives who named their daughters Maya, Emma, and Abigail. All three of those names peaked right around the time they named their kids--how could they have known they were the trend? My name is a little like that. It peaked a few years after I was given the name, so there are quite a few 20 something Rachels.

 

I thought most people get Holden from Catcher in the Rye, unless of course it's a family name.

Courtney and Kelly used to be primarily male names. Michael in French is pronounced "Michelle".

Hey, we got Ainsley from a TV show, so I guess that's - whatever you want to make of that. I looked on Baby Name Voyager, and Ainsley came out of nowhere in 2003.

 

I love girls with boy names, like Tommy :wub:

I obviously didn't go for unusual names for my kids but spelling played a big part for me. Nobody has ever spelled my name right the first time so I wasn't going to do any crazy spelling.
I don't hear many Alyssa's these days so that may be my most unusual.

 

I think it is one thing to have a name that is unusual due to culture and TOTALLY another to have a name that is unusual due to parents making it up or naming their child something like Goldfish. It makes no difference the color of the skin - Goldfish OR ABCDE are just way out there. Oh and Urhighness????? come on! that is not culture.

 

Holden was a character from the show As the World Turns. I don't remember a Holden on Sex in the City, but it is early and my memory is lacking without some caffeine!

 

ITA!!

 

The British chef?!??

I *knew* I liked you!!

 

No, from The West Wing! Heard about the British chef after she was born.
Still like me? ardon: