Subject: None I know personally, but my mother ...
Author:
Posted on: 2008-07-31 21:29:00 UTC
... claimed to have worked with a not-terribly-smart-overall woman who became pregnant and told everyone in the office that she couldn't decide whether to name her child Wayne or Dwayne. Her surname was Swayne.
Mercifully she got married to a guy named Bedford or something, who also persuaded her to pick a less cringeworthy first name.
Some of you may have seen a variation of this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7522952.stm reciently. That, and the fact that I met a Russian man named Voldemort (that is his actual name, he showed us his passport!) at a dance festival this month has got me thinking about wierd and wonderful things NOT to name your RL children.
Obviously such gems as "Peaches" and "Fi-Fi Trixabelle" come to mind, but has anyone actually encountered odd names at school or work? They must be real names, not nicknames!
I used to know a "James Bond" whose brother was in my class in Junior school. I also once met a child called "Dolphin Smith". Anyone got any other odd ones?
My real name is Maia, after the mother of Hermes in Greek mythology. It's unusual enough that I used to hate it, but now I've gotten to the point where I like not having the same name as everyone else around. ...Though I get a like embarrassed about it when introducing myself to fellow LotR geeks.
*is LOTR geek* But I knew the name Maia before I read it. I read a book once where the heroine was called that. "Journey to the River Sea"- set in the early 1900s, about a girl who goes to live in Brazil.
*is a LotR geek too (though not quite as much as a few years ago*
...That book sounds vaguely familiar. *shrug* Probably I've just heard of it sometime. Sounds interesting.
(Glods, I hope I'm spelling the name right...) It's been ages since I read her books, but they're awesome, aren't they?
And yeah, your name's really nice. I agree.
He started something...green...like Earth Day or something. Either he started it or supported it, I can't remember. But his name's Gaylord Nelson.
We had an assembly back in seventh grade where they talked about him and all the boys were snickering.
I had an English teacher called Gaynor. She said her husband only married her because her name sounded Arthurian. She was really nice, but the butt of a few jokes. And we also had a Latin teacher called Miss Gaillard, and everyone thought it was pronounced 'Gaylord' before she told them how it was pronounced.
I knew a boy who was named James James. There was also the boy named John Johnson.
I know a Thomas Thompson. And a John Jahn (last name not misspelled). Fun. XD
I work with an asian guy called Jacky Chan. Apparently he went to school with a Bruce Lee!
A few others (all real!):
Alex Hole
two brothers: Peter and Andrew Nuss
Some exchange students at my school who picked strange English names:
First and Fiat
Benz and Bank (both sets of brothers)
Elcalion
My mom was telling me about this guy she knew named Morning.
And I used to call myself thus: Nyx Artemus Saga le Fay. Thankfully, I stopped. *is ashamed*
(Yes, Artemus. The babyname site said it was real. D:)
My history teacher was telling me about a girl he went to school with named "Moonbeam Meadows".
Sounds like a housing development...
...I went to grade school with a boy named Sky. Just remembered. XD
The Dean of Students at my school is named Tom Riddel. No joke.
When you have a teacher or whatever that has the same name as a fictional character. I'm not sure why, it just amuses me - but then again, I'm pretty easily amused.
My grandma used to teach a boy named Guy. Unfortunately, when the poor lad's parents chose the name, they'd only ever seen it written down, and, seemingly, took a random guess at the pronunciation - Gooey. Presumably he liked the name, because no one ever called him Guy.
The mind would boggle had it not already been so deeply traumatised by the horrendously bad baby names site someone linked to earlier.
three girls called Storme, Sequoia and Tsunami. The latter two were sisters.
Perhaps not too unusual, considering some of the names out there. No one ever got their names mixed up with other people's.
... claimed to have worked with a not-terribly-smart-overall woman who became pregnant and told everyone in the office that she couldn't decide whether to name her child Wayne or Dwayne. Her surname was Swayne.
Mercifully she got married to a guy named Bedford or something, who also persuaded her to pick a less cringeworthy first name.
Her last name could have been Kerr. Think of the teasing the kid would get!
Hey, my Chinese name may mean "precious jewel" or if you don't write it correctly..."moon", but here in America, it's the very bane of me.
Pronounced the Western way, it sounds like a personal pronoun. Who wants the world to think they were named after a personal pronoun? GAHHHHHH! I adopted a more normal moniker when I started grade school, but nooooo, my parents registered me under the Terrible Chinese Name Of Doom. So now, I'm constantly correcting my teachers and subs. Why me? *sobs*
Oh and my Chinese name is Yue.
Like the CCS character then. I actually kinda like that name but I don't think I could get away with naming a kid that outside of China. What "normal" moniker did you end up using? I had a few Asian friends in Australia and one was called "Nii" but she told everyone her name was Jessica.
I used to go to school with a girl named Endless Yue.
Lotus, Autumn, and Sophie, we only ever knew them by their anglicised names. My ex supervisor was addressed as Veronica, but her name was actually Hyun-Ju. I've also known a Gilbert from Korea, and a Bob, from Japan!
Which I'm not gonna tell anyone; suffice to say everyone thinks my parents are horrific Egyptology nerds. --;;;
I actually wanted to name my child Talianna at one point. That was when I actually wanted children. -- *issoashamed*
Egyptology nerds, I mean.
Dad just saw the name in the Boston Museum of Art in his college years and liked it. AND THAT, CHILDREN, IS WHAT YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER DO TO DECIDE YOUR KID'S NAME.
My real name (and that of my sister) are both plant derivatives, but it could have been so much worse, if we had been boys we would have been Timothy and Basil! And my dad being a tolkein nut we could easily have been Gladrial and Arwen!
... as are many of the kids of my parents' classmates (at UC Berkeley in the '70s).
I went to high school with Arwen and Eowyn, but my school is named Avalon, so...
She's about thirty now, I think. When I met her I was too young to know that Arwen was a character - I just thought it was a pretty name.
there was a kid called Arwen joining reception the year before I left. My sensibilites were offended because she didn't look anything like Liv Tyler. *is a blasphemer, and watched the movies before reading the books. Hey, I was seven!*
But in my case, the girl I know was born shortly after the books first came out, and from what I know of her mother, it's a good bet that she was named after Tolkien's Arwen.
Still, it's a lovely name. Too bad no one will be able to use it for the next fifty years without forcing their child to suffer terribly in school. I wonder if "Nerdanel" would work...
but this kid started at school in 2004 or 2005, so the movies would definitely have been out by then. It's like the trend to call girls 'Shiraz' or 'Chardonnay' now - if the parent thinks it's a pretty name, it doesn't matter where it came from (although with Arwen, it's slightly more acceptable). Sad but true.
my brother's called Timothy. He absolutely hates it, and refuses to answer to it. And it gets confusing if our parents are trying to call one of us downstairs/get us to answer the phone, since Tim and Kim sound similar.
My brother hates his name even more since he found out that I was apparently the one who named him.
He's called Janix, after his father's childhood imaginary friend. If he was a girl, he'd have been called Zenria, after a dream his mother once had. Poor boy. The kids are school are all going to call him Jane.
But that was in a newspaper years ago, so names have probably moved on by now.
Have you seen Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing? It's like sporking, but for the monikers some parents force on their unfortunate offspring.
I think I found it a few years ago, linked from this very posting board. Heh.
I was told there are four men registered as "Jesus Christ" in California...
Actually, in Real Life I have a fairly unusual name, in the sense that I constantly have to tell people how to spell it, but aside from a brief stint at the age of eight when I wanted to be "Catherine", I like my name; it doesn't qualify as truly "strange".
Being Random. Shutting Up.
Whose name was 'Willie Stroker'. 'Nuff said. Also, there's a reporter in Australia whose name is 'Harry Potter'.