Category: Bad Baby Names

These may not be all that bad, but a friend of mine has a son named Brien, which is pronounced, “Brie-n”, who in turn has two sons, named Rayne and Zayden. Frankly, I’m not sure if any of these are common names, but they are just different enough to keep friends, teachers, etc., confused as to spelling, pronunciation, origin, meaning, etc.

-E.

I work at a Univeristy, and have seen some strange and bad names in the student files.

Superman The Aquarian (“The” is the middle name)
Koala Bear
Cinnamon Twist
Asha Mashaka
Amanda Gropper (can you believe that!!!)

-M.

I have a family member who’s an obstetrician, and has been in practice in the south for 40 years. We have seen our share of pseudo-Latin (or is that Pseuda-Latin American?) names: Latrina, Tangela (I always wondered if she was conceived in a citrus grove),Tercel (conceived in a Toyota?) etc. But the winner has always been a baby he delivered in the early 70’s:

Tcheacheata Wequadreneta – pronounced… (wait for it!)… Chiquita Juanrenita.

I never thought this could be topped… until a couple of years ago, when someone called in to make an appointment for their daughter:

Pausefunei

I had her spell it. Twice. I’ll give you a hint – she’s married to the Greek God of the Underworld. Yes, it’s Persephone.

All I can figure is that these people hear a name, and guess at the spelling. How hard would it be to *ask* someone?

-S.

A friend of mine from school was named Aguinaldo Alfonse (last name) III.

-J.

My own experience with odd names concerns my daughter, an otherwise sensible girl who named her boys Chase (not too bad, although I note quite a few girls named Chase on your site), Bryce and Tristan. I begged her not to give names that would have these lads get the crap beat out of them daily at school, but she just didn’t get it. Bryce’s middle name is Joseph, so he suffers the double ignominity of having B.J. as his initials. I’m going to call him Joe (and Tristan Jeff, since his middle name is Jeffrey).

It’s not likely that Grandpa can have a whole lot of influence in this, but we’ll see — perhaps if either one of them likes it well enough they’ll start using it and subvert their mom’s well intended but otherwise misguided naming efforts.

And my (relative) named his daughter Zephyr — I told him he should name his next one Monsoon, or Twister. And that she’ll marry a guy named Zeb and they’ll be Zeph and Zeb and run around without shoes and have lots of kids named after Carnation products. He doesn’t speak to me much.

Thanks again for the fun — keep writing.

-M.

I have some additions to weird, but real names:

My hairdresser is Nick Romeo. He has a sister Juliette. I went to school with a Tyker Fagg and a Dork Alyhadoian. I had a client by the name of Richard Ichyfish. I had a sales rep named Bernadette Skubly-Butts (I kept her business card).

Keep up the good work!

-S.

Having recently spent some time on baby naming message boards and having had the same reaction as you, I really appreciated your site. I even showed my husband some of the names in the hopes that he wouldn’t think the names I was suggesting were so strange (I like real zingers like Maxwell or Henry) It didn’t help. Anyway, here are a few odd-ball names I’ve seen. They are all people that either my husband or I have personally met so unless they gave a fake name I can attest that they are all real. Enjoy!

Years ago I worked at the credit desk of a retail chain. One of my duties was to take in credit card applications, so I saw some interesting names. The one that stands out the most was a young woman named Holly whose birthday was December 25th. A bit too cutesy for my taste, but not a terrible name in and of itself. But get this… her last name was Berry. Holly Berry, born on Christmas day. The kicker? Berry was her married name! It has been a few years and I have to admit her last name may have actually been Barry, but either way, if I were Mrs. Berry I would NOT have taken my husband’s name.

Part of that same job involved occasionally paging applicants back to the credit desk. There were a few people in the department who enjoyed trying to trick the switchboard operator into paging false, humorous names (a la Bart Simpson). One of their favorites was Phil McCracken… until one day we had a guy who really was named Phil McCracken. Of course the operator, now wise to the gag names, refused to page him.

This one falls under the heading of “A Perfectly Good Name But an Odd Choice Given the Circumstances”. I know a wonderful young woman named Emily. Her mother is Japanese. Emily’s family lived in Japan the first few years of her life, so she has close ties with that part of her heritage. She is currently spending a year there working as an English teacher. She recently sent us photos of her birthday party with her grandparents, aunts, etc. What did the cake say? “Happy Birthday Emiri”. It never occurred to me before, but let’s think about this. Emily is a fine name, but an odd choice for a girl of Japanese descent considering the English “L” sound doesn’t exist in the Japanese language. Why would someone give a child a name that is virtually unpronounceable to half her family? And, her sister’s name is Paula. They did it twice.

Maybe you can help me. I’ve always wondered… is Seren (yes, pronounced like the nerve gas) an actual name? I used to know a girl named Seren and thought it was one of the weirdest names I’d ever heard… until I found your site of course.

I know a woman named Jennifer Marie. Or at least she thought that was her name until one day she obtained a copy of her birth certificate. Turns out that legally her name is Jennifer Maire. Don’t you wish those birth certificate forms had a spell check?

My friend’s sister named her little girl Madysen. It is pronounced Madison, not ma-DICE-in, as any reasonable person would first guess. As if that weren’t bad enough, where do you suppose they live? Madison, WI. If ever there was a place that should be spared the scourge of the Madisons, you’d think it would be in a city of the same name. Apparently not. But people, please for the love of God, if you adore your city so much that you feel compelled to name your child after it, at least spell it right!!!

And finally, did you know there is a whole branch of caconomenology dedicated to Unfortunate Business Names? I’ll paraphrase a snippet of conversation my husband had when writing up a sale for a small contracting company.”Name?”” Goodeno. Wait, better put it under the business name. Goodeno Builders.””Goodeno? Could you spell that, please?””G-O-O-D-E-N-O-U-G-H” (insert my husband trying to suppress fits of hysterical laughter)I’m all for naming the family business after the family, but at some point common sense must prevail. Wouldn’t you love to write slogans for these guys? Good Enough Builders: When the best just isn’t necessary. Good Enough Builders: Half-assed is the only assed we know.

-Denise

My mother named me after the Falcon Crest TV star Ana-Alicia. She replaced some of the letters and came up with Alisea(Ah-lee-see-ah). It just so happens that Alisea(Ah-lay-zay-ah) is the Spanish version of Alice. And during my entire school life, no one could ever say my name correctly on the first try. I’d have to constantly reminded people how to pronounce it, and even if I did, they’d spell it wrong too! Alisha, Alice, Elissa, Alyssa, Alise, Alicia, I even got Elyiseah once. I’d given up in middle school and told everyone to call me Dani (my middle name is Danielle.)

When my younger brother was in first grade, there was a child in his class named Star Queen Poindexter. Not only was she not very smart, but kids teased her for being ugly (“unqueenlike”).

My fiance Marvin and I are trying to decided on our first born’s name. We really want a girl, especially him. So we looked through the alphabet and saw that the letter “G” was inbetween the first letters of our first names (A-Alisea; M-Marvin), and I love the name Madison. Since we both come from Hispanic-African American descent, we wanted something Spanish for our daughter. We also wanted something biblical and of God. So we came up with Genesis Madison Adriana (or Madi for short). What do you think?

-A

OK…I hate to admit any relationship to this one…but my (relative)’s daughter is named (I PROMISE I’m spelling this the way her mom does): Shaniquequa. Supposed to be pronounced like that old “hooker” name: Shaniqua. But it looks like “Shan eek qua qua.” Middle name Leneice. Go figure.

-D.

I was recently at the store with my toddler. Upon hearing me speaking to my daughter, the woman (no, girl) said, “My daughter has the same name. How do you spell it?” I responded that it was the traditional spelling. She then told me that they spelled it ZOWEE. I could tell she expected me to comment on the adorable and unique alternate form they had crafted. All I could say was, “Oh.” I didn’t verbalize what was really in my head: Our daughters do not have the same name. While my Zoe is taken from the Greek, meaning life, and is very fitting for our one and only, her daughter is a sound effect from the 1960’s television version of Batman.

-Tricia