Unusual baby names.

I knew a Taren in college. It always seemed natural to me bc my mom is named Karen. I did not choose Grayson's name, DH did. I wanted to name him Grady. Of course now I like it and it suits him. My only regret now is that it is being used for girls too. DH and I wanted to avoid that since he and I both have androgynous names. Oh well! (The new show Cougar Town with Courtney Cox has a character named Grayson.)

I find all these urban legends to be quite entertaining! :laughing:


Jori - If you come back here and read this, I've always wanted to tell you that it is almost ironic how I relate to all your names. I worked with a Jori for years (and she is such a fantastic, funny and smart woman!). Then your boys names... our last name is Sullivan and we live on Finely Court. ^_^

 

And on the show ATWT, the story line on the show mentioned Holden was named for Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. Full circle.

 

Of course I still like you!! (I've never even wanted to watch the WW, now I live politics day in and day out.)

 

I really liked Holden and thought about using it for Blake, but DH didn't like it and my BIL said what's the middle name going to be...Richard? So I knew I better not go there. I also liked Grayson but DH thought it sounded too feminine.

 

When we were naming our boys, we wanted something that wasn't super popular or that had a really odd spelling. I love unique, yet traditional, names & was hoping that my kids would be the only kids with that name in their class. I also wanted to avoid nicknames, which we pretty much did with our boys' names. We really liked Irish names & searched through those first.

I remember telling my mom that we had chosen Aiden as a name for our son & she had never heard it. It had slightly begun to become popular (with the spelling AidAn), but not in our area. Of course, as soon as we choose Aiden, there are a gazillion of them around (typically spelled -EN now, which we chose because that's how I wanted it pronounced...Aid-EN vs Aid-AN). While he doesn't have any in his daycare class, there have been MANY times where a parent has called out "Aiden" at a playground & my son has responded . I also work with 3 women who have a son named Aiden! His middle name, Michael, is a family name (my brother who passed, my grandfather who passed, & my FIL's name).

Conner definitely is well known, but definitely is not as common as Aiden. However, while we felt we were spelling it in a 'normal' way, we apparently aren't. VERY rarely have I found any personalized item with it spelled ConnEr vs ConnOr. Connor is traditional, but again, we spelled it how we wanted it pronounced...Conn-ER vs Conn-OR. I don't know any other Conner's, except a child I nannied for 7 years ago. James is also a family name, he's named after his Godfather/my brother.

Thankfully we didn't have a girl because I LOVED the traditional, old fashioned names that are QUITE popular right now (Emma, Alexandra, Madeline, Elizabeth, etc etc).

Some names that I may not 'like' or that I find different at first have grown on me over time. Our friends named their son Declan & I really disliked it at first, but now it's a fav of mine (which we couldn't use b/c of them)! I guess I just like the Irish names!

A lot of the women I work with have named their children some names that I consider unusual. Those that come to mind are Birch & Trace. Trace, especially. Isn't that a verb? Cutest kid, but I still can't get over the name ! As for the most ridiculous I've heard, a friend worked at a preschool in inner city Milwaukee with a sweet little girl named Placenta. Yes, Placenta. She went by Placie or something, but still. Placenta?

 

I have a sort of unusual name, Lara. I always have to spell it for people, and most pronounce it the way Laura is said, "Lora". It should be said like La-ra, rhyming with car with an a on the end. I don't correct people on the pronunciation unless they say it like it rhymes with hair with an a on the end (sorry, I can't think of better rhying words).

That said, I never had heartburn over having an unusual name. I am friends with several Lauras, and one Lara (she actually married DH and I the day after she was ordained). It's just a name to me.

For the kids, we didn't want anything too unusual, or novel spellings. But we also didn't want to choose very popular names either. We went with Lilah and Ryan. I'm still surprised by how many people mispronounce Lilah as Leyla or Lee-la. I never would have thought of those pronunciations with her spelling. But, like me, she handles it well, just correcting folks as it happens. Ryan has been a popular name for a long time, but not super popular. There have been/are no other Ryans in their classes. Will likely change as they get older and into bigger schools.

I think parents should do what feels right to them, regardless of apostrophes or exclamation points, but at the same time, recognize that many do get a first impression from a name, and many will use preconceived notions with that, right or wrong. I doubt a name has much to do with narcissism; parenting style is more likely the biggest player in rearing narcissistic children. Snitten's (Kelly's) links were great eye-openers: good reads and a new perspective.

 

Hey, whatever you want to name your kid is cool with me. You just need to be aware of how kids will react to it and how it may be percieved when they are adults.

My Dad used to tell me about a guy he went to highschool with named Harry Growth.

What about that NFL player that changed his name to Ochocinco to match his jersey number?

 

Yes...you got to love Bengal (Chad) OCHOCINCO Johnson. He will be on Dancing with the Stars soon. Cincinnati is so proud!! You guys can argue all you want but apostrophes just don't belong in first names. It goes back to grade school English. Apostrophes show possesion and missing letters. If you think your kid needs an apostrophe because a letter is missing, just give the kid the letter LOL. What if you feel like your kid is the most exciting thing in the world? Will you add an exclamation point in the middle? Will James become Ja!mes? What if you aren't sure about paternity? Do you add a question mark after their name? I respect every one from every culture but you have to think about the poor kids. Think about them as professional adults and what their name will represent. To each his own, I guess

 

Mo'Nique is up for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. That apostrophe really held her back!

Thanks for the English lesson, I know what an apostrophe is for, I stated so in my post. If apostrophes are acceptable in a last name, why not a first name? I'm not getting your apostrophe hostility. It's not the same as sentence punctuation (question marks, etc.).

 

Actually, there is a young man named Da'Quan Bowers who plays football for Clemson (you will hear his name in the NFL in a few years). The accent actually makes you pause at the syllable, which is how you pronounce it. I would much rather see a name with an apostrophe, than a name that I can't pronounce. And believe me, through subbing there has been many times when I have to ask a child to pronounce their name for me.

 

I grew up with a neighbor named D'Ann. I don't get the apostrophe hostility either. Apostrophes are not that unusual in first or last names. BTW, my middle name is Renée, properly spelled with the accent mark.

 

That's all your opinion isn't it.

I certainly understand there are biases in the corporate world based on a person's name, but rather than attacking the name why not attack the bias.

 

That is the name they had chosen for me if I was a boy. I remember telling my mom I would have been teased as Dick Holden. And she got so embarrassed, they obviously didn't think about that! So glad I was a girl. My dad's name is Dana, but he goes by his middle name Mike (Michael) or D.Mike to some. My mom is Ann Gertrude, but people call her Ann G.(like Angie). My daughter Piper's middle name is Noel with two dots over the e. Not sure how to do that on here. The original birth certificate didn't have it, and we had to fight to have them put it on just the way we had written it on the form from the hospital. Funny thing is we live in Canada and that's a very French way to spell Noel. I'm still not sure what all the fuss was about. Gary even went to the office an hour from our house and finally sat down with the Supervisor.

 

:rotflmbo: Ok, now that would have been a difficult name to have.

I know a few people who have the surname Dick. My Dad's old boss was Harold Dick; that's another troublesome combination.

 

Slightly off topic but related to this post. I went to college with a guy named Jim Organ (frat brother of Lou's). I thought his name was Harry for years because the guys all called him Harry. Harry Organ. Even his then girlfriend (now wife) called him Harry. :rofl:

 

Alt + 0235

Noël

 

LOL! That's a good one.

 

My friend's name is Zoe with the (um-lau--how do you spell that?). I still can't get it in there I must be typing that code wrong.

 

You have to hold down the ALT key while typing the letters (don't type the +). Sorry, my instructions were not clear, lol.

 

Thank you, Rachel.

Look at how the far right likes to emphasize the President's middle name, like that's supposed to mean something bad.

 

HARRY DICK for PRESIDENT!!! :rotflmbo:

you know, he could really be a terrible candidate and end up getting elected BECAUSE of his name. There may be a flip side to all of this? :unknw:

 

A friend of mine used to work with Dick Brain. It was Richard but for some bizarro reason, he went by Dick.


Yes, there are some terribly odd names out there, but I guess to each their own. I wouldn't want to saddle my child with a name that is hard to pronounce, spell, etc. But then again, my parents generation thinks that the use of last names (i.e., Nolan, Brady, Ryan, and Courtney for their grandchildren) is odd. Hey, maybe our kids will be naming their kids with numbers instead of names. I think it's nice that some people try to keep true to their heritage with their children's names (apostrophes and all).



I was still always puzzled by the baseball players Coco Crisp and Milton Bradley, though.

 

My DS's first name is Richard (after his dad, GP, and GGP), but we call him by his middle name, Ian. One of the big reasons is because I know DH's family's "sense of humor" and they would have been calling my son "Little Dick." My family sometimes jokingly calls him "Little Ricky" (from I Love Lucy) and I only tolerate that because it isn't a regular thing.

 

My cousin's name is Dicky. And that's because Big Dick was his grandfather, and Little Dick was his dad. . .

And a friend kept her maiden name because the married one would be Dickey. :rotflmbo:

 

True story, since we are talking about the name Dick. I have told it here on TS before.

When I was in college, my main ed prof was Dr. Dick. She was a very large and intimidating woman. Bear in mind, I went to a very conservative Christian college, so that made it worse. My junior year she got married to one of the Techie guys that worked at the school. His name was Mr. Fry. She decided it would be a good idea to hyphenate her name! My entire junior year I had to call her Dr. Dick Fry. It was horrible. My senior year she decided to go by Dr. Fry. Thank goodness. Someone must have finally said something to her.

 

How on Earth could a student say Dr.Dick-Fry without cracking up! There are just times when you should NOT hyphenate! Dr. Dick was bad enough!

 

oh that is horrible.

 

Hilarious - I don't think I could take a class from Dr. Dick! A good friend of mine in high school had the last name Head. His dad's name was Richard and he went by Dick. Why oh why would you go by Dick if your last name is Head?!?

 

While we're throwing out unusual names we've heard... I'm a teacher and have had a few unique names...
Eddrick
Eddious
Dason
Diamon (like diamond, but w/o the d...)
Sky-lyn (I really like that one!)
Harley (not that unusual I guess)
Ecurb (which he pointed out is Bruce spelled backwards... but I don't know if that was intentional)

One year I had an Alexis, Arlexus, and Elexus (thankfully not all in the same class!)

 

Lou knows a guy with the last name of Titsworth. And yes, his nickname is T*ts! His wife's maiden name was Nelson. I think I would have kept my maiden name in this case, but she didn't.

 

I met a Marine several years ago named Major Tiddy. He joked that even if he were promoted, he'd still be Major Tiddy. And he'd know the love of his life and future wife if she'd agree to take his name.


In my organization, there is a Jim Crow. Now seriously, if your last name is Crow, why name your child James? Or why introduce the nickname Jim?

 

Since my college minor is English and my full time job has a lot to do with newborns and birth records I guess I am heavily OPINIONATED in the names department. Hostile? No. I never said the apostrophes held people back. Cher, Prince and Madonna never used their last names but that didn't hold them back, either. President Obama has an unusual name but he is, obvioulsy, successful. My sister's name is Noël with the 2 dots or diaeresis (not umlaut)over the "e". The umlaut is also two dots but changes the pronunciation of the word (commonly used in German words). People can give their kids any name, initial,number or letter they want. I was giving my opinion on baby names just like the rest of you. We rented our first apartment from a wonderful elderly lady and her sweet husband. Her married name? Ima Boner. I still have the lease to prove it.

 

One of my family sur names is Nolin. We are using all sur names for the twins. Hudson Cole & Brewer Nolin :drinks:

 

One of my mother's best friends was named Barbara. She's always gone by Barb. When she got married two years ago, she took her husband's last name, Dwyer. So she's now Barb Dwyer. Which, if you say it outloud, sounds like barbed wire. (my brother still can't refer to her without laughing)

 

Okay, that struck me so funny! Our receptionist just asked me what was so funny and I was laughing too hard to tell her!