Unusual Names

[Monte Carlo]

I'm a bit of a Danny Finklestein fan, he runs a comment blog for the UK Times newspaper. Here he hat-tips Freakonomics on the subject of names... LINK

 

Personally, although I find the new crop of kids' names amusing, what really REALLY annoys me is the adoption of shortened names on birth certificates. For example:

 

Harry. Harry is enormously popular (due to, I suspect, JK Rowling as opposed to Shakespeare) but everyone under 40 forgets that it is a derivative of Henry. Do people christen or register their kid as Henry? No. Result? A real name with enormous cultural significance dies out. And I think that's sad. Ditto John (people christen their kids 'Jack' never realising that it's a derivative of John). And loads of other names.

 

Anyway, what names are fashionable at the moment where you live?

 

Cheers

MC

[taks]

isn't john just short for johnathan? my son is john. we don't let people call him johnny or johnathan. his grandfather was john, too, though aunt margaret always called him johnny.

 

there's a hole in the bucket dear liza, dear liza, there's a hole in the bucket dear liza a hole. then fix it dear henry, dear henry then fix it dear henry fix it!

 

taks

[Shryke]

one bonus of working in telecommunications is that you get to talk to people with all sorts of crazy names

 

eg instead of Katie, i had one that spelt it Caytee

[Rosbjerg]

I talked to a guy called Danny Ten-thousand (in danish).. that was awesome..

 

Right now the most used names (for newborns) are Emma (girls) and Lucas (boys), now why these people don't just call their kids Loukas or Hemma/Ermen I will never understand.. they are simply destroying these old names!

 

Names change and that's how it is.. I bet your own name is a abrevation of an even older one.

[Monte Carlo]

Monty is clearly a shortened version of Montgomery and Carlo is latino / Italian for Charles.

 

As for John / Jack.... think of President John F Kennedy, known to his friends, family and ten million girlfriends as Jack.

[Shryke]

i have a nephew i keep referring to as Zelda

 

his name is Lincoln, but they call him Link for short, and that just makes me think of the games....

[SteveThaiBinh]

Mohammed. And that ain't changing any time soon.

 

Other popular names are Fahad, Abdulrahman, Ahmed, Turki and Ala'a.

[LadyCrimson]

In California 2005, the most popular newborn names - Daniel and Emily. They cycle around.

 

For unusual names (for the US anyway), one of my nieces is named Usha, which is an Indian/Hindu name.

[Calax]

well names usually skip generations, so kids have grandparents names.

 

Thus I'm now going by my middle name which I haven't seen, but there were 3 guys with the same first name as me in my school career.

[Enoch]

Yeah, Calax is roughly right on the trends, at least in the States. If you want to be ahead of your time, give your kid a name that a lot of people around 50 or so have. Not many people naming their kids that now, but in 10-15 years, it'll be adorably old-fashioned and all the rage.

[Aristes]

My Indian name is "God is my Judge."

 

I thought Harry was short for Harold. *shrug* It's probably short for both. After all, if Jack can be short for John, then Harry can be short for Henry.

[Shryke]

there's also Jim for James as well

[Calax]

my name is "valiant fighter" "Olive tree/host of elves/ancestor" (town in england minus a w)

[Hurlshort]

We named my daughter Skylar, and now I keep hearing about other newborns named Skylar. I've also heard it's a boys name, but I don't buy that at all. I liked the sound of it, and with both my wife and I being teachers, we wanted a name that we didn't already associate with a student.

 

Desiderius would be a good one for our next child. I suppose it is a boy name though.

[Fionavar]

Right now Ocean is one that I have heard more often ...

[taks]

After all, if Jack can be short for John, then Harry can be short for Henry.

not sure how either qualifies as "short for" since both cases the "shortened" name has the same number of letters and syllables.

 

taks

[Hell Kitty]

A real name with enormous cultural significance dies out.

 

Telling parents they haven't given their kid a real name certainly isn't going to get you anywhere.

[Rosbjerg]

Telling parents they haven't given their kid a real name certainly isn't going to get you anywhere.

 

But that would also be silly I think, how would we get new names?. I only have problems with parents naming their kids after TV shows and fictional superheroes (from the last 50 years) etc.

 

I think some of the newer names to pop up around here are quite beautiful and most have their origin in much older religions it seems, or simply natural places like Ocean, some even from other religions - Hindi names are getting more popular.

[Pidesco]

Won't somebody think of the poor children.

[Amentep]

Hmmm, some names of people I've met or heard about from co-workers over the past 20 years, off the top of my head:

 

Trivia

Vulva

Lemonjello

Orangejello

Argasm (pronounced Orgasm)

[Tigranes]

Korean names usually constitute a single syllable for your surname (such as Kim, Lee, Choi or Park) then two syllables for your given name. There is also, especially in older days, a tradition of using a common syllable in your given name for brothers (so Ji-Sung, Ji-Dong, Ji-Won and Ji-Wook for a family of four, for instance). Koreans continue to use transliterated versions of Chinese letters for their names, as well, to give some meaning (so my given name Sun-ha equates to letters for 'Good' and 'Summer', which... okay, so I guess it means jack all).

 

The last decade or so has seen some come up with more 'creative' names though, such as one that could be translated as Kim Seven Bright Shining Stars In The Night Sky (and yes it's just as unwieldy in Korean). I seem to remember that one such 'unique' child committed suicide as a result of bullying regarding the name, though I can't recall it with any confidence to suggest it actually happened.

 

I'll dig up a few interesting ones when I'm at work tomorrow, there are some crazy names in the media out there.

[Shryke]

ooh the funniest i had was Kila Chook

 

Kila pronounced "killer" and chook of course being slang for a chicken

 

what made it more funny was the fact that he worked for Tegel Foods (a chicken company pretty much)

[Walsingham]

Hmmm, some names of people I've met or heard about from co-workers over the past 20 years, off the top of my head:

 

Trivia

Vulva

Lemonjello

Orangejello

Argasm (pronounced Orgasm)

 

No-one is called Vulva, except in the TV series Spaced.

[Reinoc]

Hmmm, some names of people I've met or heard about from co-workers over the past 20 years, off the top of my head:

 

Trivia

Vulva

Lemonjello

Orangejello

Argasm (pronounced Orgasm)

These parents need to be shot in the knees or , at the least, wear a sign around their neck saying "I named my child [insert stupid name]"

[Gorgon]

I'm going to name my son Monty Crababble.