Category: Bad Baby Names

I’ve gotten a few e-mails about the name Latrina, so I thought I’d do some research.

Well, it should come to no one’s surprise that ‘latrina’ in Italian means…latrine.

According to the Kabalarians, who come up with (cough) meanings for every weird-ass name out there, have this to say:

“Your first name of Latrina has given you a quick-minded, sensitive nature. It gives you a creative ability in art, music, singing, or fancywork and an appreciation for refined surroundings.”

This appreciation of surroundings must make life extra tough for the first two Latrinas I found, both of whom are in prison and looking for pen-pals, possibly more. (Both are up for parole pretty soon, gents!)

Jennifer (the net name spy!) spotted this one:

Q: Ma’ire is a unique and beautiful name. How do you pronounce it? Does it have a meaning in another language?

A: thank you, i worked 9 months on that name LOL. it is pronounced mary and it is the gaelic spelling (my family ancestry. i figured with a name like my momma gave me that i needed to keep up the tradition!) –branwyn

So the name’s not because of your ancestry or anything, so much as the continued appearance of it. Ah.
Actually, Branwyn’s close, but no cigarillo. Maire (no apostrophe) or Máire (with accent) are Gaelic version of Mary, as are Molly and Mairi. (Let’s also remember that Gaelic spellings and English spellings have been drifting apart for the last 600 years or so, which is why they often have a variety of spellings for foreign words.)

You also may be interested to know that Maire is French for “mayor.”

Iron-stomached reader Virigina directed me to what may be the Necronomicon of Bad Baby Names, the pitch-black pit from which all bad names emerge: http://baby-names-etc.com/unique_baby_names.htm. The page is part of Baby-Names-Etc.com, which appears to be one of the hundred and hundreds poorly-put-together and apparently abandoned baby name sites on the web. There’s no way to tell if it’s an offshoot of a commercial site, someone’s hobby, or what. Whatever it is, it’s pretty cheap…..and EVIL!

I have written to the owners of the site demanding an explanation for the following article, as well as writing to the standing U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, but have not received a reply from either.

UPDATE! Reader Lisa recognized this passage as familiar and says the baby-names-etc.com people plagarized it in full from “New Age Baby Name Book” by Sue Browder. I suppose this explains the typos, but it doesn’t explain the Conspiracy of Evil clearly afoot: Someone wrote something awful, someone edited it, someone published it, someone distributed it, someone bought it, and someone liked it so much they took the time to plagarize it. Maybe Browder’s lawyers can hash it out.

Here is the page, quoted in its entirety, complete with snotty comments, because I can’t resist.

Unique baby names are fun and unique baby names can be created in several ways. The ways to make a unique baby name is only limited by your imagination.
Wow. Comprehensive discussion as to why to create a name from scratch. “It’s fun.” Thanks.

Anagrams: To create an anagram of an existing name, take the tile letters from the game Scabble (sic) and combine them in different ways.
“I like Ohnj for a boy and Aejn for a girl.”

Telescoping: Drop letters from a word until you find a baby name that is suitable. Kahlil Gibran can be changed to Kabran. Schuyler can become Sky.
Woah…Kahlil Gibran isn’t unique enough? I really like cars, so I used this technique and have decided to name my first son Autobile. I also like the films of Frederico Fellini, so I may name my first daughter Fedco Felin.

From the father’s name: A boy can be named “Junior,” but you can be more creative. Donald can become Doni or for a girl, Donie. John can become Jonette, Jonille, Jonalee.
…or Itmightbeyourkidlyn. You’remypropertyIownyouette.

From the mother’s name: A popular way to name a boy after his mother is to use her maiden name if it was Ward, Grey Parker, Davis, Ross, Cole, Taylor, Williams – or an equivalent. Or the mothers name can be transformed to a boy’s name. Mary can become Martin, Marle, Marwin, Marson, Marren, etc. For a girl, it can be Mari, Marina, etc.
I can’t put my finger on why, but the first sentence, about “equivalent”(?) last names strikes me as racist. Oh yeah, it’s because those are white white snowy white names. So I’m naming my son Kleinman Yamaguchi Chan-Jackson Hernandez Mangosuthu Rajagopal. Smith.

Combinations: Take the mother’s and father’s names and combine to create a new baby name. Mary and John could be Marjon, Daniel and Susan would be Dansan, David and Sally could be Dally not Salad! Alan and Mary make a very nice girls name Alray.
Marjon – a low calorie spread. I can’t believe it’s not Marjon!
Dansan – maybe if you’re huge “Cheers” fans.
Dally – as a middle name. First name Dilly.
Alray – makers of fine face creams.

I had fun with this. I put my own parents’ names (Mark & Susan – they’re so very proud) in the Name Super Collider! and came up with:

Marsan,
Masu,
Markan,
Musan,
Mausa,
Sark,
Sumar,
Sarsan,
Suma,
Surk,
Susar,
Sum,
Susam,
Susamar.

None of which I’d name my dog. OK, I’d name a cat Mausa. Or Carl. There’s just something funny about animals with mundane human names.

Re-Spellings: Take a name like Marianne and make it MariAnne to create a new baby name. Arlene becomes ArLene. Catlin becomes CaitLin. Make Janet J’Net or J’Nette.
Oh, for cripe’s sake! Is there a single person out there, a single, solitary person who thinks Marianne and MariAnne are different names? Could I get a show of hands? Anyone else thinking of SanDeE* in “L.A. Story”?

Second question: Does anyone think J’Net or J’Nette are pronounced “Janet” (“JA-net”) and not “Jeanette” (“gin-ET”)? Seeing as how an apostrophe is a lingual blank, and not, as many people think, accents. If I ever parlay this site into a wacky candid camera show, I’m going to sick Monsieur Martin, my incredibly aggressive former French teacher, on people to teach them a thing or two about accent marks. After three hours of him yelling, “C’est circumflex! N’est pas accent grande! Jamais!” the parents will be filing the name change paper work themselves. And crying.

When it comes to unique baby names, anything goes! Names are everywhere, from designer tags to colors, like Azure, Rudby, Burgundy and Gray. Months like April and June are easy names for girls. States provide names like Dakota and Carolina. But be careful when you select a name.
Careful like you were when you typed in “Ruby”?

Complicated names that are impossible to pronounce will only bring grief from teachers and teasing from classmates. Names that are difficult to spell will be misspelled throughout the child’s entire life and while it makes them unique, the aggravation can be a nightmare.
This from a site that just suggested Jonille?

And here’s a dire warning on giving a boy a girl’s name and vice versa: It’s a setup for disaster in the school yard. Howard O’Brien is now Anne Rice, author of the famous vampire books. She was given a boy’s name because her folks wanted a boy!

So be kind to your baby. Choose unique baby names with care.
So if I give my kid an f’ed up name, they’ll become a fabulously popular, though not overwhelmingly talented writer of gothy best-seller-list demi-porn?

Susamar Rudby-Aejn Rajagopal it is!

it really irks me when people get on this board and tell people that they shouldn’t name their children unique/modern names. Their argument is that when they get older, their “cute” name won’t make any sense. I get what they are saying, and I respect their opinions, but this is the way it is, people!!

And because it is the way it is, all those who don’t think it should be will be ordered on to trucks and shipped to labor camps until they decide to name their kids Mykynzy.

Look at the paper once and see the birth annoucements, they are all newer names. Go to a kindergarten class and look at the attendance sheet, they are all newer names also. Face it, times are changing.

You vill like zee stupid names! Old names are counter-revolutionary!

I lived in a world where there were a million Josh’s, Matt’s and David’s. Now there are a million Kayla’s, Samantha’s and Brittany’s.
Pretty soon, there are going to be a million Brayden’s, Jordan’s, and Madison’s. Don’t worry about your child growing up to be a Grandma MacKenzie, because that is going to be a normal name for her generation. Just like we have Grandma Mildred’s and Grandpa Frank’s, whose names have gone out years and years ago.

Yeah, well I lived in a world where plurals aren’t spelled with apostrophes. “Comrade’s! To give your kid’s normal name’s is against the teaching’s of our fearless leader! You will change your way’s and have lots of kid’s with pretentious name’s!”

Meanwhile, this staunch advocate of doofy names has gone and unravelled the primary pro-doofy name argument: Unique names make kids unique. Over and over I’ve read people complaining they don’t want their kid to be Jenny W. or Kevin P. at school, when all they’ve done is set up their kids to be the even more silly Braden J. or Brooklynn M. Damn you, irony!

My first born has a name that no one else has, he is a first, Abeus ( Abe E us ) it is a strong name, and as for getting along with other children his age, there is not a doubt in my mind he has friends. He gets along with other children, and is not picked on because of his name.

This is one of my favorites. It has everything, nice and compact. It’s got a bad name, which sounds like a combination or fragment of a normal one, spelled strangely, and emphasized poorly.

Plus, it has a mother who insists the child is unique, and then insists in a rather desperate tone that he isn’t a total social outcast, spurned by humanity and destined to live in a sewer in the bowels of Gotham City because of the badly spelled, poorly emphasized bad, bad name. Really, she acts like having friends is something you believe in, as an act of faith, as opposed to something you witness with your own eyes.

All this, and there’s a good bet the kid’s no more than 10, so she’s presumably watching him with her own eyes a good deal. Is she rationalizing the time the kids locked Abeus in the composting toilet as a friendly hazing incident?

(Reader Tom points out, and I can’t believe I missed it, that Abeus is an anagram of “abuse.” )

I prefer to name my first girl Sam or Stads and my first boy Chris-Webb or Jason-Collins

All I have to say is, “The hell???” (yes, those boy’s names are NBA players.)

my wife & i decided to name our daughter MARA JADE after the mother in Star Wars. if it’s a boy well name him ANIKEN MICHEAL. we are star wars fanatics. do you think we went too far?

First off, and I had to look all this up, the mother of Aniken Skywalker is named Shmee. Now there’s a name. Mara Jade is a character from the many geek book sequels who thusly is described by the official Star Wars Web page:

She was once known as the Emperor’s Hand — a highly skilled assassin and operative who could hear Emperor Palpatine’s bidding from across the galaxy. Trained since childhood and honed into a weapon, Mara learned self-sufficiency, piloting, marksmanship and talents in the Force while serving her dark master.

This charmer, after many fascinating adventures in many silly named places and after many attempts to kill Luke Skywalker, ends up marrying him. Then together they go on fascinating adventures to silly named places.

Reading this fulfills your entire yearly geek info quota.

Next up, the Web site says the correct spelling is Anakin, but in any spelling it’s a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid name, and unless the kid hones the ability to strangle people with his mind and sound like James Earl Jones, his life will be a nightmare of unimaginable proportions.