Why do people insist on giving their kids unusual or mis-spelled names?
Someone just posted that his grandson’s name is “Zhaidin”
As far as mis-spellings, I read an article the other day that 6 girls born in the US last year were named “Annaly”....Please people.
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Shallow, empty headed cretins who selfishly put their own desires above their, kids.
You mean like “Dutchess”? Who decides what is misspelled or not?
I suppose that they want to believe that their kid’s name is unique, but they don’t realize the problems that those mis-spelled names will cause in their child’s future. I’m sure the teachers don’t care for it either, especially when they have a roomful of Kaitelyn, Catelinn, Kaetlann and Kardamom.
They’re tired of the appearance of conventional names, but still like their sound. There’s definitely a pressure on some parents to provide a “unique” name and not just go with “Michael” and “Elizabeth”, so they create unique spellings that don’t change the pronunciation (something a language like English allows for, to a highly absurd degree) in place of using an actual unique-sounding name. Personally I’d rather someone just name their kid “Potato” than “Ghoughpteighbteau”, uniquely spelled or not :)
@DominicX Ha Ha! That looks like the Welsh spelling for potato.
Actually, there’s a story behind my avatar name, and the mis-spelling @gailcalled.
I went out of my way to give my kids easy spelling names. I named my daughter “Cory” when she was born, but when she was 5 I learned that was the masculine spelling, so I legally changed it to “Corrie.”
My son is Chris and my other daughter is Jennifer.
Everyone says my name shouldn’t be spelt the way it is. A lot of people pronounce it wrong, because of how it is spelt.
What is your name, @Headhurts? Also, do you wish your parents hadn’t done that, or does it not bother you?
Unusual names? They want their children to be different to stand out from the crowd of Michaels and Deborahs.
Misspelled names? There’s no such thing, Any name can be spelled anyway a parent wants.
@Dutchess_III I’ll pm you with it. It doesn’t bother me at all. It does annoy me when people say it wrong though.
I think that in many cases this says something about the how the parents envision the kid’s relationship to society at large. Parents try to equip their kids with a name that will serve them well in the context the parents imagine for them.
My dad told me that he picked my first and middle names based on how they would sound in a business or professional context, so I have a name that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in a boardroom. It’s a blending-in name. Clearly, my dad imagined that I could integrate myself well into mainstream society and make my way there.
But suppose a parent had little hope that mainstream society would ever accommodate their child. Maybe the parent imagines that the only way the child will have a chance is to somehow break out of anonymity and make people notice. They might want to give the kid a name that attracts attention and that is theirs alone.
My name is Samantha, but it’s pronounced “Val er ie.” Or is it the other way around…
I’ve met quite a few boys named “Brain”. Yes. Brain. The parents were trying to spell Brian, and that’s how they pronounce it. OMG!
Because Americans make up their own culture as they go along, and folks got bored with traditional names.
I have to agree with @marinelife in that there’s no such thing as a “misspelled” name. It’s not a word, it’s a name.
My name isn’t unusual, but it’s spelled different than most spell it. No one spells it right, so that’s the only annoyance for me.
I think some people go to far with alternative spellings, though. A baby in my husband’s family was named Kholten recently. I rolled my eyes at that, but it’s not for me to say anything about it.
Unusual names are really hit and miss for me. I like men with typically female names (Ashley, Shannon, Morgan) and women with typically male names (Dylan, Drew, Cori). I also like trendy names like River, Keagan, and Addison. However, I can’t stand names like Sky, Sunny, Stormy, Apple, Blanket, etc. or names that aren’t even names, but just sounds. Soon, names like James, John, and Jessica will be out of the ordinary.
Why would anyone name their son Stone? It sound weird to me, and yet Rocky doesn’t. Go figure.
Annaly? Are you upset they didn’t spell it Annalee or Anally?
No…wait, I meant, they’ve spelled it “Analy,” I think. Let me see if I can find the link.
Now that’s a prescription for bullying. Being anal—-> Anally
No.
Heard a couple recently I hadn’t heard before, both girls. One is True; the other, Chance. I thought it was pretty neat. Haven’t seen a lot of spices or herbs used as names. Pepper, Rosemary, ??
I guess these parents don’t remember the law of the playground, or actually want their kids bullied.
Still, it could always be worse, just the other day I saw a guy on the news called “Mustafa Koc”, no word of a lie.
I have to agree that there may be no such thing a a misspelled name, but when they give a kid a name they do intend it to be pronounced a certain way. When the parents use the letter “e” when they expect it to be pronounced “a” or vise versa it makes someone look a bit ignorant. I imagine it might be embarrassing to a kid when they always have to correct someone’s pronunciaton of their name. like, “My name is spelled K h a n c e. It’s pronounced ‘Chance.’ ” What? You guys can’t see it in the post, but I used the word “be” 4 times, and at one point they all lined up, one after the next in my rough draft! But then it shifted. But it was cool.
I don’t get it. There are tons of unique names that aren’t made up and that people rarely have. In my 53 years, I have only met 2 other people with the name. I didn’t have to misspell it or make it up. I got it out of a baby book. There are tons of names from other cultures that are very pretty.
Niallan is a celtic name and is quite pretty. Never met anyone by that name.
Clarissa (Clarise, Claire is english versions) is spanish, meaning bright and shiny. I can honestly say I have never met either in all my life.
People should also be careful what name they choose to spell out. For instant. If you name your kid Aja; you just named the kid Goat.
I did have a friend who named their kid TRAY. If the kid turns out to be a waiter it will be on them. LOL
how does Aja = goat? I think Aja (Asia) is a pretty name! That’s one of my good friend’s girl’s name. And I like Alatje (Ah lay tcha) ‘cause that’s my niece’s name, and it’s Dutch. And her sisters are Arika and Aubrey. (My sister’s name is Alexis so…..yeah. All A’s)
And I will learn to like Zoey, because my son says that’s what he’s going to name his baby when she’s born on October. I asked him to please name her Jacqueline Marie, because that’s what I wanted to name Corrie. However, my mom wanted me to name the baby after her, because it was her first grandkid. My mom’s name was Cornelia. o/o.
Chris asked me who Jacqueline Marie was. I cleared my throat and said, “Uh. John F. Kennedy’s wife.” He vetoed it. :(
I didn’t know that! But…most American’s don’t so it’s OK. I’m sure there are a lot of names that don’t translate well.
What IS funny, is my friend was/is a devoute Christian, and gave both of her kids “Christian” names, found in the bible….. Aja and Darius. She’d probably stroke if she realized Aja was more Hindu than anything! And I guess, in the Bible Aja = Vulnerable.
Because they’re trying to be cute. I don’t mind the unusual names, as long as they’re not too bizarre or stupid sounding.
People tend to do dumb things to names, though. It would be like, “My name is spelled Aghbbie, but it’s a silent gh and pronounced Abby.”
I have a nephew named Mathew. You have no idea how nuts this drives me. Mostly because I know very well that it’s a misspelling, and not a personal preference.
Ouch @glacial!
My ex has a nephew named Geoffrey. He didn’t know him all that well, I guess, because I heard him pronounce it “Ge-off-rey” Got ticked when I corrected him.
He also got ticked when he pronounced “McLeods” as “Mc Lee Oyeds” and I told him it was pronounced “McClouds.” (It was a store in the mall and they had ads on the radio for it all the time.)
O! One time he made a comment about something going down in the “anals of time.” I said, “It’s ANNUALS! Not anals!” He got mad.
He even got mad when it turns out he was 6’ even, like I said he was, and not 6’2” like he insisted he was.
@Dutchess_III Wait… it’s not “annuals” either… it’s “annals”. But I’m guessing you already know that!
Damn it! Yes, I knew that, but I never use the stupid word so I wasn’t thinking. Yeah, annual would be like, a year.
ANOUNCEMENT:
My name is Ash-Leigh. Hyphen included.
That’s what I assumed it was. What else would it be @Ash-Leigh? Ash Lay? Ash Lor? Ash Loon?
I like unusual names. My baby will have an ethnic last name and the first name needs to sound right with it. If I have a girl, her name will be Aminah, although we still don’t have a boy name.
My niece’s name is Arora. I love the name, but do wish she had the u in there to prevent future misspellings.
I have an unusual name. I don’t like it, but my mom did.
I would assume that it is pronounced Ash Lay, as in sleigh.
@Dutchess_III Be glad you didn’t name your kid after her. So much tragedy followed her. I am not really superstitious but when it comes to naming kids, I wouldn’t choose the name of someone who had a tragic life.
@Pandora I’m pretty certain that Ash-Leigh is pronounced ash-lee. The other common spelling of Ashley is, in fact, Ashleigh (no hyphen). And anyways, the name Leigh is pronounced lee, not lay.
@AshLeigh Hey, as long as your mom didn’t spell it Aghsh-Leeghee, or it’s not pronounced Ash Hyphen Lee I’m good with it. :D
Yeah @Pandora…I didn’t think of that. Also, that was before John John died. It’s just such an elegant name…and we could have called her “Jackie!”
I named my son Monroe, it was my great grandfathers name. It’s a little unique but it’s not bizarre. It’s a name you hear or see around fairly often in life, just usually not as a first name.
Monroe is good. Munrogue, pronounced ‘Monroe’ would have been bad.
Just watched The Blind Side again. The Mom’s name was Leigh Ann. I know this because I saw her name spelled in the credits at the end. Again, I see “Lee” when in conjunction with “Leigh Ann,” or “Ash Leigh” “Leigh” by itself, I see “Lee Ah.” And that is a bit odd, I guess.
When my grandson, Blake was born, his older brother by 4 years called him “Blank” for a while! I’d forgotten about that!
The best part about my name… It’s Ash-Leigh Keigh. Pronounced Ashley Kay. What the hell, mom?
I don’t mind the weird smelling. My name is long as heck, and it’s hilarious. :D
Monroe Edward sounds like a good name for a politician or lawyer.
My brother named his kid Caleb Oliver….pronounced khaleb…..cute kid, but I’m not a fan of his name.
Caleb Oliver sounds like a salad with a light oil dressing. My daughter named her son ‘Kale,’ which, as a I understand it, is a vegetable. But he’s ½ a twin and REALLY cute and 4 months old, so it’s OK.
@AshLeigh What is your name? My son’s name is really long….he was the only grandson so we had to give him everybody’s name….so he’s Christopher August Joseph Vogler, AKA ‘Chris.’ Joseph was my dad’s name, August was Chris’ dad’s father’s name. (Chris was the name of my boyfriend in 3rd grade but I don’t think I told my ex that…..)
Some parents think it is cute and different. Pop in an I instead of a Y that sort of thing. Some names are correctly spelled with two spellings. Aimee and Amy for instance are both correct in my mind. Same with Ana and Anna, Sara and Sarah, etc.
However, I was watching The View a while back and they were talking about names and Whoopi made a comment that she thinks names should be spelled the way they sounds. I think this might be a cultural thing for black people maybe, but I hesitate to make that assumption just because Whoopi said it and she happens to be black. Like Francesca spelled Franchesca or Francheska. They spell it how someone who speaks English would spell it rather than how an Italian would spell it. Personally, it just looks to me like they don’t know how to spell the name correctly. Like they don’t read much.
As far as unusual names that is a different thing altogether. Evetntually some of the unusual names become usual, especially in the immediate community. It might be unusual to you, but not where they live. Or, over time more and more people start naming their kids the name, it catches on.
I think Zhaidin is a surname.
@cheebdragon Caleb is biblical. Many people are named Caleb. It isn’t wildly popular, but not unusual in my mind.
I forgot to comment on Leigh, I believe it began as a surname, then given to boys and later girls. The name was spelled with variations like Lee. In America we generally use Lee for a boy and Leigh for a girl. Ashley has a similar history being a suname first then a given boy name and eventually a girl name. This happened with many names and still happens. Names like Allison, Leslie, Kelly, Etc.
@Dutchess_III, it’s Ash-Leigh Keigh Pendergrass. And if I get married one day, I plan to become a hyphenate, so my name will be Ash-Leigh Keigh Pendergrass-whatever. XD
@AshLeigh Don’t do it. LOL. A close friend of mine, her DIL has a hyphenated given name and hyphenated her name when she got married. I tell people not to hyphenate surnames even when they have a “normal” first name. Not that you have to heed my advice. Just know people will screw up your last name constantly. Not just spell it wrong, they will file it wrong; many people will “file” you under the first initial of your second last name. Americans don’t handle hyphenation very well, they don’t know the rules. Not to mention your maiden name is long and a lot of syllables. But, my whole life I have had difficult to spell surnames and it doesn’t really bother me if people screw it up, so maybe it isn’t a big deal in the end.
Friend of mine named his two girls Orange and Ocean because they’re his wife’s two favorite things.
“Don’t you get to pick”, I said.
“If I chose my favorite thing,” he said, “one of them would’ve been named Beer”.
And the other one would be “Porn.”
LOL
Well I guess if I did that, one would’ve been, Tiramisu and to make it extra special, let’s spell it as Tirramissyou (Tira miss you)
and the second would be Pastelles and lets spell that Passtellus (Pas Still us).
I waiting for a parent to name their kid properly
F’dupfolks, and the other Dongiveashit, Accident spelled Aksident, and Whoopsie spelled Wupsy because the want the kid to have a special name and they can’t spell.
I’m “Alyson-with-a-why”.
That’s annoying as fuck.
I pity anyone named “Ginnyfurr” or whatever. A normal name spelt all crazy is just annoying.
Know what my son’s name is? Ian. I. A. N. He’s been able to spell his own name just about since he could speak. Our neighbor’s kid is like, eight or something – in second grade – and knows her name starts with an “S”, but is completely lost after that.
That’s just cruelty, IMHO.
Now, normal words as names don’t bother me – “Apple”, for example – because most names have simple meanings when broken down to their roots. “Craig” means “crag” – or, y’know, a big crack in a rock. “William” means “guardian”. “Jason” means “healer”. “John” means “Toilet”.
I’m just saying, having “Hero” for a name is a lot nicer than having whatever your parents poured out after sticking the alphabet in a blender.
@Seek_Kolinahr GA. If it is any comfort, all Allison’s have to at minimum say one L or two. I have an extremely common name, spelled the common way, and still people spell it incorrectly sometimes. Mostly Hispanics spell it wrong, because it has a double consonant and Spanish does not have double consonants (except double L) and living in Southeast FL half the population is Hispanic. My mom doesn’t like when people make names unusual by changing the spelling. She is very sure there is a right way and wrong way to spell a name. But, she is like that about many things, not just names.
As I think i’ve mentioned before, my name can be spelt several different ways, my parents chose the easiest/most common way…Alan.
Allen, Allan, Alun, Alan…just do as Paul Simon said.
When someone says a name I know is commonly spelled two ways I usually ask before I write it down, I don’t assume. But, funny, a couple times the people seemed to not know what I was asking. Like if someone is Mark, I ask, “spelled with a c or k?” Once in a blue moon a Mark might answer, Mark, with an M. It happened with a Brian once. I asked, “with an i or y,” and he started “Bryan B-R-Y…”
As I mentioned, I originally spelled my daughter’s name, Corrie, “C O R Y.” I was determined to keep it simple. Well, she knew how to spell her name before she got to kindergarten—say, by the time she was 4. Well, she knew how to put the symbols together and that it had something to do with her, but she couldn’t read yet. One day I walked into the living room and there was “C O R Y” written in crayon (or is it ‘crayyawn?) on the wall (or is it ‘whal’?) I hollered “Cory! Come here!”
She came scampering in with her big ole’ brown eyes all wide and huge and said, “What, Mommy?!”
I said, “We do not write on walls!”
She looked a the wall, then looked at me in shock. “How did ju know it was me?” she asked. I had to stifle a giggle right then! :)
@JLeslie In my case people often don’t even consider the most common alternative spelling to my name, “Dominick”, although I’ve seen people assume it before. Even on this site I had someone write ”@DominickX” :P Although I knew a guy named “Domenic” (derived from the Italian spelling); that must’ve been confusing…
@DominicX I guess your name is uncommon in general in Ameirca, especially in areas that have very few Italians, so I can see people not knowing necessarily alternative spellings. I don’t know if you know my real name, I’ll PM you with it. Think of it along the lines of names like Lisa, Melissa, Sharon, Jessica, very very common for my time and rarely spelled in an alternative way back then.
By the way, my name is almost never spelled differently by someone who is actually named with the same name, it is just people screwing up the spelling.
@dutchess_II Wait, you changed the spelling of her name? Why? I missed something.
A name is misspelled or unusual until it is not. One of my great-grandfather’s was transliterated as Lazar, Lezer, Leizer, and several other variations. We call him “Lazar” for convenience.
Look at Beijing Duck or Mumbai Sapphire to remind yourself of the fluidity of language, and not just English.
@ucme Your last name doesn’t happen to be Rickman?
That’s my husband’s name @Kardamom.
OK, like, a parent wants to name their kid Chanel, like the perfume. So they name her Channel, because it actually does sound like you’re saying “Chan-nell,” but…it doesn’t work that way.
@Kardamom Much as i’d like to say yes, for your sake, that would be a lie of sorts.
I can do his accent though…“shoot the glarss!”
@Dutchess_III I knew a woman who named her daughter Chanel. Is that a thing now? The girl was 4 years old, and this is going back to the late 90’s.
@ucme : ) Thanks for indulging me.
@Kardamom Ha, i’ll admit, he’s got a tongue smoother than a baby’s bum after bathtime :D
@JLeslie I just pulled that out as an example. I’ve heard of a couple of girls named Chanel, but I don’t know if it’s a thing.
@Dutchess_III Some people don’t understand that double consonants can change the sound of the vowel if you follow the rules. Like the car racer Rafael Matos. We knew him when he was just starting, and the reporters all pronounced it may-tose, but it should be pronounced mat-tose. I told him if it was double t they would get it right in English. Not that it is an excuse for them to pronounce his name wrong, they should verify the correct pronounciation and give a damn. Eventually, after being corrected several times the racing industry has come around and pronounces it the way he does. Anyway, in the end, no matter how people spell their names we pronounce them how they say them, not necessarily how it is spelled according to English langauge rules. Of course, with Matos there is a reason, his named is spelled in his language; Channell, who knows, they thought it would be cute and didn’t realize it spells another word, still misspelled for that matter. Or, they didn’t bother to check how Chanel is supposed to be spelled to begin with. Or, they don’t even know what Chanel is.
@JLeslie Of course we pronounce it as they do, but you run into a problem when you’ve never heard it pronounced, have only seen it in writing. I would just feel sorry for a little kid who would have to be constantly correcting teachers on spelling, or who was constantly asked, “How do you pronounce that?” As a shy little kid, I would have been mortified to be called out like that. I would have had a very hard time “correcting” adults, too.
Someone said they thought “Zhaidin” might be a sur-name…it isn’t. It’s what they named the new grandson of a friend of mine.
Victoria is a fairly common name you would think, but I only went to school with 1 in elementary school and another 1 in middle school. They weren’t in my class or my grade, just went to the same schools.
Oh no no no, my mom was so adamant about people only calling me Victoria or Tori. She actually changed daycares when i was around 3–4 years old just because they were calling me Vickie.
She thinks “Vickie is a hooker name”....lmao.
Well! I’ll let my sister-in-law know that!
I meant, that I assume that many people who are called “Vickie” are really hookers Victoria but people shorten it to “Vickie”
I like Tori. One of my favorite books is “One child” by Torey Hayden. I didn’t know it could be short for Victoria, though.
@Dutchess_III I brought up Zhaidin possibly being a surname. What I meant was maybe they came up with the name for the their son, because it was a family surname sometime in their family history.
My nephew has a name that many people screw up when they first see it. His mom and he got very upset when his teacher, I think it was 5th grade, just could not get it right. His mom felt the teacher put no effort into getting it right. I told them to spell it phonetically in English for her, but they were resistant. I can’t for the life of me understand why they would not do it, they just kept blaming her for not trying. I think his mom made it worse by reacting as she did. Eventually the teacher said it correctly, but it took weeks. The woman just must have a hard time with foreign names. The name is not difficult at all really. I see this all the time though. People look at my last name and feel like they will never be able to say it right. Then I have them look at it while I say it, have them say it while staring at it, and forever more, in one fell swoop, they have it down pat. Americans just too easily think they can’t do it for some reason. Too confusing when it isn’t.
I didn’t get the impression that that was the situation with Zhaidin. Grampa posted the comment, and he was having a hard time with it, remembering how to spell it and things.
May I ask what in the world your nephew’s name is?
This is the second story I’ve heard about people actually getting defensive when people struggle with the pronunciation of a name! I mean, you (the parent) gave it to him! You had to have known it would be difficult for some people!
@Dutchess_III I’ll PM you the name. I agree completely! If you give your kid a nonstandard name either for the country or the spelling or something totally made up, you need to be patient when people struggle with it, and teach your child how to handle it.
@JLeslie, people spell my name wrong anyways, so it won’t be that different. And I think it will be funny.
@AshLeigh It will be. I can see why you would want to do it.
Just got an invitation to my neighbors baby shower, they are naming their daughter either Tinnley, Finnley or Jinnley (it’s written in a really strange font so I’m not positive what the first letter is exactly, but I’m 90% sure it’s a T)
@cheebdragon Tinnley sounds like Tiny and Tetlley to me. That’s when I have a problem with names; when they sound like something. Alexia had a little burst on the scene when I was a teenager and all I could think was anorexia.
Sounds like Tin Lee to me. Why they want to do that?
Finnley reminds me of baseball for some reason.
@cheebdragon Now that you say it, forever more that will come to my mind also.
Biggus Dickus & Incontinentia Buttocks.
@Dutchess_III My name is Leanne but I often shorten it to Leigh, this is because if I shorten it to Lea people pronouce the A (as in, Leah) and Lee is the male spelling.
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