American Idyll ’12

There’s an incredible shortage of bad names on this season on American Idol. I can only blame this on Simon Cowell leaving, which means they let through few-to-no crazy people in the auditions because no one’s there to be mean to them. Overall, this is a good thing for the human race – not letting mentally ill or deluded people on TV – but it’s bad for comedy. And I’m not going to watch X-Factor to make up for it.

Savannah: The only really bad name we meet is Neco Starr, who we see briefly in a montage. We get to re-meet brother and sister Colton and Schyler, who both tried out last year and were both good. Individually I could almost live with those names, but together their whiteness becomes 1,000 times brighter somehow. Ashlee is one letter away from a real name, but, more importantly, history’s greatest monster is a man named Phillip Phillips Sr., because he named his poor kid Phillip Phillips Jr. He just couldn’t keep all the suffering to himself – he had to spread it around.

Pittsburgh: A run of not-great names, but none so horrible you want to punch somebody – Reed, Chase, and Hallie are not good picks for me, but are pretty much actual names. Only standouts were Creighton and Eben, which sounds like Evan right after a dentist’s appointment.)

San Diego: Jayrah is one of those doofuses who performs a song he wrote himself. God I hate that. He is also convinced Outkast speak to him directly through song titles.

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5 Responses to American Idyll ’12

  1. Sarah says:

    Great! I know Eben, he’s from my hometown!

  2. Jenna says:

    There’s nothing that unusual about Eben – it’s from the same thing as Ebenezer, and has been around for at least decades as a name in its own right (it’s in The Poisonwood Bible), for example. Apparently it comes from a place in Israel.

  3. Natalie says:

    My son is called Chace and would have been Hallie if he was a girl. They are unusual, not bad. Names represent the personalities of not only the child but the parents too.
    I went to school with two other Natalies, so I was either called blonde Natalie or Natalie G and it was frustrating.
    Have a field day with this one…if I have a daughter, her name will be Sunday.

  4. jeremy says:

    Creighton is a town in the Pittsburgh area, however, it makes for a stupid name for an individual

  5. Rivkah Maccaby says:

    “Eben” probably should be spelled “Eban.” There’s a famous rabbi named Abba Eban, and Eban is a popular name in Israel. Transliterating it “Eben” isn’t wrong, but “Eban” is closer. It means rock, or stone in Hebrew, which is why it is part of several place names in Israel.

    “Evan” is the same name. There’s a Hebrew letter that is pronounced either like a B or like a V, depending on the preceding letter, and whether a vowel follows. It got mistransliterated consistently in the KJV, and a lot of those are still with us.

    Dickens “Ebenezer” has a name that means “helpful rock,” or “the rock that helps.” It foreshadows what happens at the end.

    Oh, and there’s also a girl’s name “Even,” or “Evin.” It’s Irish, and completely unrelated to the Hebrew name, which is a boys’ name.

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