I went to high school with a girl named Tishara. She had a brother named, tragically, Destry. Come to think of it, I don’t think it was even as dignified as Destry. But rather, Destri. … I don’t think their parents were hippies or pretentious yuppies, I think they were just clueless and weird. But any polite inquiry about names was met with the logic that a unique name is some sort of acheivement.

I’d also like to add that I live in Utah, where we’re afflicted with former “Survivor” cast member, Neleh, as a charisma-free news “personality”. We are all dutifully informed that she was named after her beloved grandmother, Helen. Named after her, but spelled in reverse.

Is there some sort of logic to this reverse-spelling tribute? But that’s not even the annoying part! You see, the fact that it’s spelled ‘Neleh’ doesn’t prevent her from insisting that it be pronounced Nell-EE-uh. Now, you can give any tortured, mis-accented pronunciation to a name that you want, but for the love of God, it’s got to be PLAUSIBLE. It has to at least contain the right goddamn letters. You can’t just spell Jim ‘R-o-y’ because you feel like it. You can’t defy the alphabet. How stupid and pretentious are you when you have to run around insisting that you daughter’s name has more syllables and a different pronunciation than is possible? About as stupid as someone who thinks reversing a grandparent’s name is still naming someone after her, I guess. Hey! how ’bout making everyone’s life easy and just naming her Helen? Not as precious, I guess.

This was also true of the tennis player from a few years ago named Malvai Washington. No, you provincial fool, not MAL-vai (rhymes with ‘eye’). It’s Mal-uh-VEE-uh. Don’t worry about the fact that there aren’t enough letters to support that many syllables. Or even that the letters aren’t even in that order. Mal-uh-VEE-uh it is!

Stupid Stupid Stupid

Jason