Category: Bad Baby Names

Ok, I’m 9 mos. pregnant with my second child and I really needed this site today! Too funny, I have e-mailed all of my pregnant girlfriends and apologized if any of their intended names are mentioned.

I know of only one really bad name. The poor guy is now 30, he is still alive. Farmer Marvel. It’s a family name, god help him. He’s always gone by Mickey, I didn’t even know his real name until we graduated from high school.

-M.

I used to do placement for newly trained car salespersons, and the one guy I ran into with the oddest name was Carrion.

I can only hope that mothers in the future will pull out a DICTIONARY and look up the child’s name before she names him so she can be sure she’s not naming her child after rotting dead animals.

-Katie

A few years back when I was working as a paralegal, we had a client, I forget his name now, but he was fighting a child custody case, so his three children’s names were featured prominently at the top of all the court documents, which is why I remember theirs so well.

Their names were Harley Jonn, Stone (something fairly silly as a middle name), and Jazzmyn Starr (!)

Seriously. J-a-z-z-m-y-n S-t-a-r-r. I mean, the normal spelling would be bad enough, in a “I named my kid after a Disney character” kind of way, but two “z”‘s, the dreaded “y” and the double “r”‘s?

She was the youngest child, and I can only assume she was born *after* her father had the motorcycle accident while *not* wearing his helmet…

I forsee a wonderful career in the adult film industry for young Jazzmyn… Or possibly something
basketball-related.

-Aaron

Had to share this one with you – I went to high school in the late 80s with a kid named Delando Cotton. I have always wondered just what would possess African-American parents to name their son Delando Cotton. So I came up with a couple of theories:

(1) His parents moved here to the Northwest from the South before he was born. In a fit of home-sickness, they gave their newborn son a name that calls to mind their Southern roots, but didn’t realize until too late that it *also* calls to mind the first line of the Confederate battle hymn,
“Dixie.”

(2) His parents just have a really warped sense of humor …

He was a year ahead of me in school, and I didn’t know him well enough to ask how or why his folks gave him the name they did. I’ll probably always wonder…

– S.

DALLAS (AP) — A convenience store owner in one of Dallas’ poorest neighborhoods was amazed when she started seeing children from the elementary school across the street buying candy and chips with $100 bills. …

It turned out that a youngster had apparently found tens of thousands of dollars in suspected drug money and was handing it out to others.

Soon, though, some men came looking for the money, spreading fear through the South Dallas neighborhood. …

On Thursday night, a man was arrested and accused of abducting and beating a 12-year-old boy who had some of the money. The boy was later returned home.

Before he was jailed on $5 million bail, the suspect, 23-year-old Sylvespa Adams, told KDFW-TV that he never threatened anyone and that the money had been stolen from him. He disputed it was drug money, as police suspect.

“I’m not no kidnapper,” he said. “I work.”

Years ago, a neighbor of mine had several children with what I considered absurd names (Breezy Spring, Misty Autumn and some other inane name which included Stormy). When I asked the woman where she got the names, she proudly announced that she took them from the weather on the day the child was born. I irreverently called them Wheezy, Breezy and Louise-y, but it gave me hours of free entertainment coming up with names for this woman’s subsequent children. Dismal December, Tsunami Sunshine, Sleety Haze, Rainy Daze, Hoar Frost, Typhoon …

An offshoot of this hypothetical baby-naming was that my children and I would take random syllables and write them on pieces of paper. We would then pull several and string them together to form endlessly amusing stupid
names. Amazingly enough, we have since heard many of these improbable combinations used as actual names!

Other obnoxious names I have encountered:
Ralphann (girl)
Abundance Lee (girl)
Blue Sky (boy)
Hug (boy)
Sammi (boy)
Persephone (girl)

-E

Where were YOU when my parents decided to name me Leilani Diva? (I looked it up. Apparently the secret meaning is “Child from Heaven/ High-Strung Chanteuse Prone to Bouts of Drug Abuse and Mental Infirmity”). I suppose I should just be thankful that it isn’t Leylany Dyva.

-Leilani

Weird names aren’t just a modern affliction: My first name is Huntington, and I’m the third generation to bear the thing. My great-grandfather (whose own Pa named him Dallas) had four boys: Dallas Jr. (!), Waitstill-upon-the-Lord, Morrison, and Huntington (the 1st). Where great-grandmother Grace was during all this we’re not sure – perhaps in a laudanum haze.

My maternal grandmother’s family’s names appear to have been normal, but she did laugh when recounting that she’d gone to school here in the Bay Area with a daughter of recent immigrants named Alameda Blessing.

Oh, and you’re so right about the perils of using nouns; verbs are an equal hazard. Mom’s Carol, which was fine until she married a man with the last name Sharp. Yep, at Christmas she sings just a little above the pitch. Since I’m Huntington the Third, I go by a nickname of my middle name, William. Uh-huh…I should work in accounts receivable. And lastly, Dad (Huntington the Second) shortens to Hunt, and is great to have around when something’s lost…

Sigh.

-Huntington (“Bill”) Sharp

I love your site! I have three contributions for you:

An older sister of {redacted}’s friend: Timber Wulff

My elementary school principal: Mazola Benton. She was named for the oil. She was the principal of Monte Vista Elementary School in Monterey, CA during the early to mid-seventies.

My sister was helping out at a preschool and met Royette and Sir, who were cousins. Royette’s mother has since changed the little girl’s name to Brittany.

-S.

As a mother of triplets, I wish you had a special section for pathetic names of twins or higher-order multiples. Some names just get worse when you pair them up to sound “cute”. Example, a distant (acquaintance) of mine named her twin boys Marius and Darius. Ugh! (Reminds me of Mario brothers video games, or bad movies full of ancient Romans.)

-H