Horrible and Fantastic Names

My mom was a drug rep when I was a kid, and one of her jobs was to go to OB/GYN's offices to promote her product. One day, she came home to tell me the name of the doc she had visited that day. His name?

Harry Beaver.

I am not making that up.

I knew a girl in college named Dolly. That was her real name. Her sister's name was Star.

I have several family members who were teachers, and they've heard some of the best ones. One of my favorites was "Abcde" pronounced AB-suh-duh.

Just my opinion, I'd like to take the moms who have named their kids Nevaeh and bang all their heads together. Blech.

No offense to anyone, but I can't stand the name Felicia. Makes me think of the word 'fellacio' every. single. time.

True name, wish I had thought of it: Riot, for a boy. Would have been perfect for my son, who we call 'baby destructo'.

Then there are the names that remind me of prescrition drugs. Januvia, Truvia, Celexa... you get the point ;)

The worst name (hands down) that I've heard of was from a teacher, who had a child in her class named....Brighton Early. Really?

My hubby wanted to name our daughter Bunny....um yeah...my response "Will she be issued a 900 number at birth instead of a birth certificate?" Some names just limit the child's opportunity for employment choices...lol. I told him if he could not complete the following sentence without laughing, then the name was not appropriate. "Now entering the room, the president of the united states, _____" As you can see Bunny just didn't work. The name sounded more like a stripper :)

I went to school with a girl name Female (pronounced Fa ma lee). She said her mother ran out of names by the time she got to her. Really sad actually every time I think about that. I'm really over everyone scrounging up all these "unusual" names for individuality. I mean really it's like some people are just adding "olia" or "rena" to the end of any random object they see. Like the just open the medicine cabinet and say "Oh yes Tylenolia, Buffrena, Midolia...yeah there all great baby names but Pamprina is my favorite." ;D

Ok, I like Ryder personally, I would not use it but i like it.
A lot of the questionable names out there are girl names for the most part.
Not a fan of car names
Sienna
Catara
Shelby

Food names (too stripper)
Candie
Apple
(OOHH Candied Apple! has to be my stripper name should I ever get desperate! it's awesomely bad)
Peach

City/State names are boarderline some of them I like some not so much
Dakota is interesting
Cheynne is cute, but I expect her to be a "southern belle"
Atlanta is never a cool/cute name
Paris not a fan
London not a fan
Brooklyn not a fan

Another name thing that is questionable and is sometimes GREAT but often just wrong is when a family Sur name that is "dying" gets turned into a first name. This is big in the south, I can not tell you how many people I met with a Last name for a first name.

I strongly enjoy proud, strong, classic names like
Bill
James
Daniel
David
Katherine
Sarah
Jane

One of my daughter's kindergarten mates was Lestat. As in the Vampire Lestat. Ugh.

Lol. I think a few of those are urban legends...several where ppl cited their relatives in the healthcare industry for coming across, I have heard already.
Don't think I know your fam.. :)

Anyhoo...I know a few ppl w/ some bad names, but I would rather not put ppl's first and last names on here.

My DD (5) told me the other day that "Jewelry" would be a pretty girls name. I said how about Julie?
She said "no, Jewelry would be much prettier, cause jewelry is pretty".

Made me laugh. :)

I went to church with a family...the Dover's.
They had twins, a boy and a girl.
Ilene Dover
Ben Dover (say the names without a space!)
They thought they were funny....I thought they were horrible!

I met a lady at sonic the other day, and she had named her daughter, Philanderah I had to hold it in, I really had to hold it in.
I am not a big fan of "le" names, like le'tasha, le'wanna, la'wiggly etc
My friend whose last name is davidson, has named her daughter harley, which is hokey (hope she doesn't read this!)

I have also heard about the ima hogg and ura hogg - what idiots!

And I also forgot about my husbands friend, whose name is BREED!

HA! A co-worker of mine had an ex-co-worker who's name was "Scott Mancock" and he was a "package specialist". NO KIDDING! I've seen his business card!

We have good friends who are getting ready to name their little girl Steele Loren. They are going to call her by both names, and all I keep thinking about is, "who is stealing Lauren?" Poor thing...

I have also heard the Shithead one before...why parents think these things are great amazes me.

We have a girl in our Sunday School class whose name is Heaven (first name) Li (Middle name, pronounced Lee) Moon (last name). The first time she told me, I had to hold in the laughter...Heaven Li Moon! She has a sister who goes by Candy though, so I figure the parents must have been on something when they were named!

As for favorites...I LOVE older names. Caroline, William, Henry, etc. Unfortunately, my husband hates them, so we have an Austin and soon to be a Carter. Not bad names, but they wouldn't have been my first choice! :)

these were some foster kids names
whiskey and shooter (they were brothers) and no wonder why they were in foster care. I really like the names Ryker and Sawyer for boys.

My big thing with names is when the parents try and spell it "unique". I don't care if you want to give him or her a name no one else has. Don't spell the name like you're illiterate. William should NOT be spelled, Wyllyum.

When you give your child an unusual name you are condemming them to have to respell it all their lives or change it. They will always have to double and triple check legal documents, deeds, degrees, etc. I have met several people that changed their names when they became adults because their parents gave them odd-ball names.

Also don't give a boy a girl's name or a girl a boy's name. I played Santa at a mall in southern California. If you want a unique name for a boy or a girl, use a name that was common a generation or two ago. When I played Santa they told me I saw between 8000 to 10000 kids. You could count on one hand all the times I heard Karen, William, Benjamin, Kathleen/Catharine, Maggie (Meg, Peggy or various forms of Margaret), Steve, Joe, David, or Michael.

Be realistic. Some names are memorable in good ways and some are memorable in bad ways. i.e. Ima Hogg, Kandy Kane.

If you really love your babies, don't give them goofy names.

Good luck to you and yours.

These 2 names were names that didn't happen, but were seriously considered at the time: My brother is awesome but a TOTAL sci-fi geek. He LOVED Star Wars and when they rereleased episode 4 at the theater (which was before he was born the first time around, lol) he quit his job on the river to work as a ticket boy at a theater so he could catch the FIRST viewing of Star Wars on the big screen. This tough guy with a full beard and hammer fists (he actually knocked out an aligator IN the water when he was trying to weld once) teared up (big huge nerd!) when the opening credits rolled. He also liked comic books (Dr Doom)....so he wanted to name his first son Anakin Doom (Anakin being Darth Vadar's name before he went to the dark side, for all you non-nerds).
My last name is PRONOUNCED Coburn, but is spelled Cockburn. The only people who know how to pronounce it correctly are people from the UK, islands, or some people from former British territories though, so we hear "cockburn" all the time. Well, I was super, super close to my grandma, who's name was Love, and her married last name was Lee, so her name was Love Lee and it was sweet. (She was lovely!) Well, I wanted to name my child, if a girl, after my recently deceased grandma. I thought Love for the first name, and change the spelling to Leigh for the maiden name. I thought it was sweet, Love Leigh. When I mentioned it all sentimentally to my husband, his veins popped out of his head and neck, and he literally screamed "Lovely Cockburn????? You have to be VERY careful with a last name like ours!"
I told him the baby better be a boy, because that's the only girl name I had in mind. Thankfully, we just had the 2 boys.

No fooling- twins named Polly and Ester!

MLE... pronounced Emily...

Hi J.-

There are many reasons I will not marry again...however...ONE reason is that my significant other's last name is michel...

That would make me 'michele michel'...

I would feel compelled to become an exotic dancer I fear.

Not much of a market at my age...lol

Michele/cat

worst name ever heard: Placentia. The dr even counseled the young lady NOT to use it, explaining graphically what a placenta was.....& she wouldn't budge on her choice. Yuck.

Personally, I love the name Ryder. I know a little boy with that name & it suits him very well. & Kate Hudson has a son named Ryder, too!

So as I was reading this I was afraid I would see my daughter's name in one of the responses! lol ;) My husband and I could not agree on a girl's name. He would love one, I would hate it and vice versa. One day I started naming off what I thought were ridiculous names and we actually loved one. Eowyn. Yes, it is from a book (and a movie series) but it is actually a beautiful name and suits our daughter perfectly. I could not imagine her with a more "traditional" name. It does get annoying because most people have no clue how to pronounce the "eo" sound and we often hear "E-OH-WHEN". (imagine that with a redneck accent as we live in Georgia.) :( Ugh. Seriously people. Its not that complicated. The only people I've met who could say it right without coaching were from Ireland.

Where we live there seems to be a concentration of symbol type names. There is a Diamond, Rainbow, Stone, Runner,Mailer, A few Riders,Striker, Snake, and Enchanted. I'm sure there are others. Maybe its more noticeable because its a small town. My parents named me Skylin...I always hated it now its ok...I go by S. mostly. My brother wanted to name his daughter Paradise Skye....umm good thing he had a boy....that he named Cashton...Cash for short :)

I'm a fan of traditional names, but agree 100% with your friend about not sharing the name before the baby is born... someone will ruin it for her!

My twin nieces are Bailey and Maci, which I love. Before they were born, my sister wanted to name them Bailey and Morgan to which my husband immediately asked if he could dress them like cocktails for Halloween... Bailey's and Cpt Morgan. Needless to say, she changed to Maci (which I like much better and it suits her).

I worked in schools for many years and I am continually amazed by what people name their children. Anything that a reasonable person cannot pronounce or spell should be "out" and any name that is a mutation of another name will just be misspoken and the child will need to "correct" forever!

Some of the ones that stood out:
Lemonjello (Pronounced LeMONje-lo)
L'Kenya
Peter Smallwood (this was just cruel)
Harry Cox (again, cruelty)

*Laughing at Kristina M's response... I grew-up in the South and lived there until my mid-20's. I can't tell you how many male friends have their mother's maiden name! Seriously... going to a wedding this weekend for a "Whiteford Baker Woodward". Most go by their middle names. Another big Southern thing is to be "Trey", which is code for "the third" or "Quint" if you're "the 5th". Traditions and names are really big "back home"!

I think it depends on an individuals preferance. My husband and I both liked the name Logan (if our 3rd would have been a boy) and we kept it to ourselves till after the baby was born. Of course she is a girl so we did not use it and my SIL asked what the boy name was and we told she. She immediately was "Oh I hate that name. Sounds so sissy to me". So I guess it is each to their own... ,lol

My fav's due to being bias:
Ian
Hailey
Gracyn

:)

Robin Robinson
Chris Christian
David Davidson

You get the idea. I mean, really? You couldn't come up with something a little more original?? Really bugs me! I wonder if it bothers the person whose parents named them that. These aren't the worse names I have ever heard, I guess. Just the ones that bug me! Especially if they are newscasters or someone with their name plastered on the TV screen. lol

And wow - Special Star, huh? Very interesting.....

And I do agree - keep the name secret if you want. People will find out the name eventually. And at that point, the name will be associated with the child, so even if it is a "less than desirable" name, it can be cuter when assoicated with that child's face and personality!

I am personally a fan of Ian, Caroline and Everette. =)

My friend teaches in the Kansas City area
YWSHWA--pronounced I believe like Ya wash ua
Lemonjello and orangello--girls, sisters -- I am serious
A girl at church named her two girls Brooklynn and Jersey.

My daughter has a friend named Diamond, not my favorite name but a sweet girl.

My mom had a host of Princesses and Queenies when she taught south of Chicago.

I am very traditional. I like the traditional spellings, and very feminine or masculine names
Charles
Robert
William
Stephen/Steven
Michael
Philip
Sarah
Emily
Jessica
Amelia
Olivia
Issabelle/a

My 8th grade English teacher was Tommy Thompson.
Added HAHA THese are great. I had a Biker James Edward one year in my pre-K class

I worked as an elementary school teacher and have heard a lot of horrible names. Some are cultural so it's an excuse, but in America they are strange names examples shithead (pronounced Sh TH eed) and Sixto (six toe).

Some others that I just loved (scarcasm)
Killians
Jameson (cute but a whisky, mom picked the name at a bar)
Crystal Chanda Leir (full name first, middle, last)
Orangejello and Lemonjello (twins pronounced or on ja lo and le mon ja lo)
Girls named Angel (in my experience the spanish boys named Angel have been fine, but ever girl I've met named Angel has been the opposite)
ESPN (oh yes we had one, and I've heard there are a few out there)
Female (fa mal long a)

The best names ever Amelia Leigh and Madelyn Renee of course! If we would have had a boy I love Landon James or Lucas James. My husband however has his mind set on either Penelope or Oliver. I'm thankfully to have got him to cave into the names I picked.

Worst names.....Ontario, Riven, Tyrannie (pronounce TER Ronnie), Azure, Kestral, Cayenne Pepper, Cartier, Summer, Autumn, Winter, January,

Someone on this site wanted to name their daughter rainy weather..OMG...seriously people....!

I worked with a woman named Pretty and another one named Tuba. I know cultural but in English..hmmm
I

I know a family with kids named Winter, Secret and Raven. It caught me off guard at first but they're such a great family that I like those names now.

My mom worked at a hospital. One day the nurses were telling a funny story. In one of the birthing rooms, there was some sort of funny poem about meconium. A lady who had just given birth saw the poem and did not know what meconium was, but she thought it "sure sounded like a pretty name!" LOL, how bad would THAT name be?! The other funny name I have heard is Lemonangelo. Weird!

Oh, I forgot to add, My mom's granny came from unique family. They had a LOT of kids and they used the alphabet to guide them on the names. My great-granny's name was Teresa Una (for the T U in the alphabet) and her youngest sister was named X Y Zella. One of these days I need to look up what the rest of those family names were.

I heard about a girl named "temptress" her mother was trying to name her after the actress "tempess"...she grew up to be a stripper.

In houston theres a famous family their last name is Hog, they named their kids Ima and Ura.

i actually knew a guy named Phil Cox

I love classic womens names, its why i named my daughters Gwendolynn and Lilly. I also considered Lillian, Lilliana, Iris, Juliet, Daisy, Rose, Eve,Grace, etc.... The more classic the better

On the other hand i like newish sounding boys names.

Melena - I know 3 or 4 of them (girl's name). Sorry, it means bloody diarrhea.

I worked in hotels for a long time and one day I got a rooming list for a german tour group. There were 2 names on there that I just loved. The first is Dorkirus Titcomb and the other was Snookie Krumbeagel (this was about 6 years ago so its long before Snookie of jersey shore) As much as i loved these names I dont think I would ever actually use them. Growing up with a name that noone could say or spell correctly I think I will stick to traditional names for my kiddos.

My favority names are Ty and Ryder ~ my boys' names!
I've never come across any I hate. I do not like when parents try to come up with crazy ways to spell a normal name!

I thought you were going to say that one of your worst picks was the name she chose :)
I have heard many bad names and can't remember all of them...
Raven
K8 (love the name KATE, but the spelling)
Kaura
Rune
Wellsley/girl
Ronan

I agree that some of these stories seem to be urban legends.
I'm no "spring chicken". I've heard many of these stories before.
Doing birth certificates at a hospital, I've heard lots of different things which I won't mention because it wouldn't be appropriate to do so.
I did however, personally know a woman, not in a professional capacity, who named her son Doodle.
That was his legal name.
I've known two children named Seven. One a girl, one a boy.
I've known a Storm, a Colton, a Ryder and a Stryder.

Nothing new under the sun.

Catwalk - Did you know that there is a very pretty actress named Michael Michael?

I agree with you about considering the teasing aspect of a name and it is a good idea to know the origin and meaning of each name you pick, but I think most of you missed the point of giving your child a unique name. It is about indivuality. I cannot tell you how many Steve's, John's, Jessica's and Mike's I grew up with and they are great names, but personally I hated that I had to describe each person before people knew which one I was talking about. I am not trying to say that you cannot be a unique person when you have a common name, but it just seems harder to me. So when I had kids I swore no one would ever ask "which ______ are you talking about?"

I grew up with friends named Nupree, Wonder, Trulane, Maize, (Maze- ee)Wednesday, Morning Star, Hawk, Darjee, Cama, Meeka and Eli. Yes, they all had to correct people and spell their names out all the time, but I have never meet another person with any of those names.

I come from a family of very unique names and I love that there are very few people out there with my name and even less with my spelling = )

I think it is all about pride in yourself and your name is part of that. If you are comfortable with yourself than your name is an extension of that and no one will question it. Conversely, if you truely do not identify with your name you should change it. I have a friend that changed her name to Pony. She hated the name she was born with and decided to pick something she liked better.

Don't forget one of the all time manliest men I can think of was named Marion Micheal Morrison- John Wayne

I like oldie names
william
nicholas
james
Christian
Vivian
sydney
allison
I do like ryder. Sounds like a strong man to me! When I pick names I think about what pops im my head when I think of it. Eden is one that has grown on me. I thought it was ridiculous at first but I like it now.
Diamond-yep a coworker named her girl that and her next she wanted a girl but turned out to be a boy so instead of beyonce she named him deyonce.
I went to school with a girl named snow white. No joke and her sisters name was tuesday!

My name is A., pronounced Angela. I was was named after a character in the 1974 Wonder Woman movie. I love my name, but it took me a very long time to learn to spell it.
My absolute favorite name is Persephone, but no way in Hades (pun intended) was I going to saddle my baby with that! We have a Josephine which goes by Josey (That is still a pain for some reason!) and a Samuel and he goes by Sam. Max for either gender is good too.

Scarlett-there's only ONE. Keep it that way!

All time worst - and this are a real names - I have seen 'em and had to pronounce them without choking ....

spelled
Female

pronounced
Fee-Mal-ay
=====
Spelled
Shithead

Pronounces
Shey-tay-ahd

Went to school with a guy named Thomas Thomas (poor guy). There is a Allergist or a ENT in my town named Dr Harry Katz (too funny)! I have never been a big fan of the name Portia for a girl, but that's just me. Knew a girl named Sunshine growing up and always thought it was cool. I love last names as first names and boy names for girls!

i used to work in the courthouse and one of the divorces that came thru the people had i think 9 kids. their last child they named ABCDE (not kidding) it's pronounced Ab-si-dee. inventive, to say the least, but goodness i felt bad for that kid. oh, and all the silly celebrity baby names like Pilot Inspektor? really. not so nice :). but to my way of thinking, each their own. my son's middle name is Dewey and while i think it's adorable, not many others would think so.