Tag Archives: letters

My husband works in human resources. At (region)(state) Health Systems, he came across an Anita Nooner.

He had to explain that one to many of the co-workers who caught him laughing. It’s a sad world.

Our friend named her son Stiv after Stiv Bators. I don’t know which is worse, the name or the thought that he’s named after a zitty, weasly, dead junkie. (Not that there’s anything wrong with zitty people. Some of my best friends…)

I work at the University of (big American city), where we have Jack Daniel and Dick Wood helping us out. I also handled the application a few years ago of a Barton Fink (!!), but though accepted, he chose to attend elsewhere. One applicant came close, but no cigar, with Karen Hiscock. If only it’d been Sharon.

-S

Names to Be Read by Immature Readers Only:

• Re-elected in December as chief minister of Delhi, India: Honorable Sheila Dikshit. (Indian Express, 12-16-03)

• Arrested in May for prostitution in Grove City, Ohio: Ms. You Suk Kim. (WCMH-TV (Columbus, Ohio), 5-22-03)
• Revealed in September to be threatening to use his $5,000 Oakland, Calif., government arts support money to kill African-Americans: artist Richard Aswad. (East Bay Express, 10-1-03)
• Killed in August in a village near Sihanoukville, Cambodia, as a result of having his testicles defensively squeezed by his battered wife: Mr. Ouch Yan. (Associated Press, 8-29-03)

Costume designer on a local theater production: Beaver Bauer

Unfortunately I don’t think I have many weird name sightings of my own to contribute… the few I can think of are

Windsong (last name) – fellow student in intermediate school

Chariti (last name) – former coworker

This could be considered sort of traditional, but why spell it with an “i,” for pity’s sake?

Monday Muse – on same shift to help check voters at a polling place. Definitely her real name, because it was right there in the voter registration list.

Galadriel Allman – college. This actually sounds sort of normal if you know she’s Duane Allman’s daughter… you know how musicians are.

Royeric (last name) – college. I guess his parents couldn’t decide whether to name him Roy or Eric and decided to give compromise a bad name.

Given the college I graduated from (Sarah Lawrence) you’d think there would have been more people there with odd names, but I can’t think of any, at least not names they were given by their parents (there were plenty of people with names such as Raven, Silver, and Wednesday, but those were self-selected).

-D.

My mom has a friend whose name is Leanetta. This woman named her daughter Ravenelle. I guess Raven wasn’t feminine enough for her.

-T.

We once had a client who named her child Des’Unique.

-P

This is the most amazing discussion I’ve seen on the baby name board I read. Someone wrote in to ask whether “Messiah” would be a good name for a boy (as if it would matter what the gender was). Someone else responded with the following:

“I’m not sure about Messiah cause the nicknames that come to mind are Mess, Messy, and Siah.”

Yeah. Because the only problems with the name Messiah are those pesky nicknames.

Unbelievable.

Thanks again for your great site.

-C.

In the vein of cruel names: I know of a family (the Knights) who have a son named “Frosty Winter” and a daughter “Starry Starry.” Yes, the parents were teenagers during the ’60s. Also, there’s a guy locally here named “Hunter Trapper Fischer.” Poor chap.

-AJ

I work for a very large health insurance company and just have to laugh at some of the names I see. Having grown up with a “different” name myself, I have sworn for years that I would never do the same to my child. Traumatic name-related childhood experience #172: A substitute teacher in the fourth grade called me “Melvin” during roll call.

Here are just a few of my favorites:
Jynelta Snodgrass
Candy Canary
Mary Christmas (this one was even accompanied by a comment of “‘Seriously!'” by the claims examiner…)

Some are funny enough on their own, but are much funnier when taken in the context that they were submitting a request to cover Viagra/Levitra/et al (drugs for erectile dysfunction):

Randy Johnson
Harry Johnson
Richard Johnson
Dr. Harden
Dr. Drain

-Merin (pronounced just like Erin…)

I work in a college admissions office, and we get some very odd names.

Some of the worst:

Wang Dong (but he was Chinese, so we can give him a pass.)
Anita Bush
Dick Bush
John Jacob Smith (no Jingleheimer, sadly)
Sparkle Berry
Anita Weiner
Harry (okay, Harold) Bush
My Ly

-Stacey

Hi, I just love this site it’s hilarious! I noticed in Chapter 6 a woman wanted to name her child Mercedes because it means Virgin Mary in Latin. Well, maybe it means Virgin Mary in Spanish but in Latin it actually means: to pay, recompense, hire, salary, reward; rent, price; bribe.

I just thought she should really research her names first.

-Lynn

Actually, and I’m surprised no one’s commented on this yet, ‘Mercedes’ means ‘mercies,’ not necessarily the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Mercy – Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes) specifically. Baby name sites get this wrong constantly.