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So one of the Tema USA women's gymnasts is named Jordyn Wieber and as soon as I saw her name I winced.

I can understand why parents might give their kid a misspelled first name, for uniqueness or ease of googling but whenever I see someone with a misspelled first name I get an impression of illiteracy.

Does anyone feel this?

Thats why I voted to name our kids "Bob."

Let's not forget Peekaboo

I really tried to get my buddy to name his son Cobra.

He wouldn't do it.

But t would beat Allyn or some other bastard name.

I know a guy in his 50s or 60s named Allyn. Remember that standardized spellings is a relatively modern thing.

My boy is named after a conqueror. Genghis Connie got her name because of her fiery behavior when displeased, and the ten tumen of horse soldiers that follow her around and are always offering me mare's milk.

One thing that was kind of neat about the period in American history when everyone seemingly had the same half-dozen names was all the nicknames.

If I lived in Norway or Denmark maybe I'd have a nickname; as it is, it's never been necessary.

I had a Josepth Outlaw back in 97 in my squad

In the first call center job I ever had we used to pass around the good ones. I thought one of my coworkers had the best one for the week when she got James Bond. But then the next day I took a call from a guy named Aquanett Jones.

Well, language evolves, and names with it. "Jordyn" might seem weird compared to "Jordan" now - but little do people know that "Jordan" too is just a bastardised form of "Yardin", the actual name of the river in Hebrew.

I confess, I also think exotic names are neat. If I ever get a kid, he or she will have a non-standard name as well. Not something that seems weird or truly out of place (personally, I have to admit "Jordyn" is pushing it for me), just ... not one of the popular evergreens that everybody runs around with either, you know? Perhaps a name from some fantasy franchise, or resurrecting one of the really old names that has gotten out of popular use.

People have trouble getting their heads around Conor instead of Connor...
Names are one of those things that when you try to have a unique one you often end up making your kid look like an idiot instead...

You rang?

Anyhow, you can have a "unique" name and still not look like an idiot. There's thousands of cool names that just aren't popular because they're from another country or because they fell out of use, so people don't think of them when trying to find a name for their child.

Try Highlander...

Yeah you probably can have a unique name but most of the time people just change a letter or do something equally silly...

I have encountered:


Dick Delight (Not Richard. Dick.)

Thor Bombadil (except this was a middle-aged Asian man, so technically it should be Bombadil Thor.)

I think the best I've ever seen was in the local paper in an article about some library reopening. . . one lady quoted in the article had a daughter named Miracle Shine. Yep. First name Miracle, last name Shine.

Frazzled wrote:Thats why I voted to name our kids "Bob."

But you could go with the silent "h" and name him "Bhob"

Really, if your kid's name doesn't have a hyphen in it, then you are totally lame. For instance, Ladon-taeraesha, means you really tried hard. Anything less is unacceptable.

purplefood wrote:Yeah you probably can have a unique name but most of the time people just change a letter

Well, of course that's just lazy.

By the way - if you have a fun time, look up the online phone registry.

I once found a gynaecologist called "Dr. Spreitz". Spreitz is phonetically similar to spreiz, which is German for "spread". Do ho ho ...

Sorry.

Lynata wrote:

purplefood wrote:Yeah you probably can have a unique name but most of the time people just change a letter

Well, of course that's just lazy.

By the way - if you have a fun time, look up the online phone registry.

I once found a gynaecologist called "Dr. Spreitz". Spreitz is phonetically similar to spreiz, which is German for "spread". Do ho ho ...

Sorry.

That also has the added bonus of being able to call up and mock the individual in question...
Way more fun there...

Wayne and Waynetta Slob named their daughters Frogmella and Spudulika.

Oprah whatever her name is.

Was supposed to be named after the biblical character Orpah.

Her parents spelt it wrong.

Mannahnin wrote:One thing that was kind of neat about the period in American history when everyone seemingly had the same half-dozen names was all the nicknames.

If I lived in Norway or Denmark maybe I'd have a nickname; as it is, it's never been necessary.

I am from the west highlands of Scotland; where all the locals are essentially clansmen, this results in 70%+ of the population having the same surname. Everyone is known by their nickname (which can even be hereditary and can function as a surname).

A bit more on topic I used to work withsome one called Greig due to a typo on his birth certificate.

Orpah! isn't that a gypsy salute?

A teaching friend here in the US had a new girl start his class, her name on paper was J-A and he called her J A.

Her very angry mother stormed into the school to inform him 'her name is Jaydasha! It's spelled J dash A!!'...

I swear i've heard that before...
A picture of a newspaper story maybe?

Oh come on! really, no one's put this up yet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_Hyman

Kid_Kyoto wrote:So one of the Tema USA women's gymnasts is named Jordyn Wieber and as soon as I saw her name I winced.

I can understand why parents might give their kid a misspelled first name, for uniqueness or ease of googling but whenever I see someone with a misspelled first name I get an impression of illiteracy.

Does anyone feel this?

*looks at username*

No.

There was a girl in one of my english courses named GG. Pronounced Jee-jee. So clever!

You sure she wasn't just called Georgina?

People are always spelling my name wrong Arron, Erin, Aeron... Its Aaron people.