Tag Archives: letters

Three gems from just one short newspaper story. All were kids under 11:

J-von
Jahi and Mars (siblings)

I am from Ohio, where our nightly lottery telecast is hosted by Beneatha Barkley (I think that’s her last name). What was her mother thinking? Did she think this child would be beneatha contempta?

My ex-husband’s white trash family was a treasure trove of bad names. His mother’s first name was Haven and she had brothers named Ace, Wig and Hack (real names, not nicknames). It’s that eastern Kentucky inbreeding thing, ya know?

I have a small business researching Quarter Horse pedigrees and have certainly come across some weird horse names in the course of it. The strangest one yet is Fridgit De BS De Ber. Maybe I should go to one of these baby-naming boards and toss that one out there. It would probably catc h on like wildfire, but then again, maybe not. There are no Ys in it.. ……

-K

One of your entries reminded me of a high school classmate in Marietta, Georgia, named Unique Supreme Gore. Google doesn’t find any evidence of that guy, but while looking for him on classmates.com I found another good one. The guy I always knew as Duan Dove turns out to be named “Duankiest”. I have no idea how that is pronounced; it sure as heck looks like “Da Wankiest” to me.

– Karen

I went to school with a girl called Silvia Sylvia. Her mother preferred the first spelling, and her father the second, so they simply gave her both.

-Rachel

My parents were convinced I was going to be a boy, and were going to call me Christopher Robin (see! I escaped a fate worse than death, there…) They had not picked out a girl’s name. Then, when I proved to have one less penis than necessary for the definition, my dad, who had been reading a sci-fi book, said, “How about Alia?”… So I am named after a cute little toddler who kills her grandfather and, in order to prevent herself from killing her brother, commits suicide.

When my parents read the second book–where she goes crazy– they wrote the author a panicked letter but he reassured them that it was a real name… it means exalted one in Arabic, which is very nice. He didn’t mention that, in latin, it kind of translates as The Other Woman…

-Alia

…and in Hebrew it (though usually spelled Aliyah) means literally “ascent” or more generally “immigration to Israel.” Exalted other woman flies to Israel…interesting….

I work in a job where I call a lot of people (wth their permission! not a telephone marketer!)… Yesterday, I very carefully did not call someone named Clay Granitte. I knew I couldn’t not giggle.

-A

I worked in the children’s department of my local library system for the past two summers, and I’ve seen some hum-dingers. The worst had to have been from the English family, whose eldest son was named Rusty. Rusty English.

We had a Kanydah, a Prettany, a Tiarra, one Matailba, a Karizma, a Shaianne, and a Cochise. I also recall seeing a Seneschal at one point. Some of these names were truly horrifying.

-Emily

Just wanted to add some interesting ones.

A college roommate of mine had the name Kirstla (KEAR-stla) but it was often mispronounced CURSE-sla.  She had a younger brother named Jedydya, he went by Jedi.  Another of her brothers was Dakin, named after the toy  company. Another was Jorgan.

-E.

I have a friend whose name is Karla. Her husbands name is Karl. Their last name is K****.

Three years ago they had their first baby, a girl. They named her Karlie. So the family became Karl, Karla and Karlie K****. Are you nauseated yet?

This summer they had a second baby. They named her Kara.

Sigh. If they got any cuter, I’d be puking on my shoes.

Thanks!

-C

When my dad was in the military he processed military personnel documentation. He once told me he encountered paperwork on a man named Precious (last name). What was even stranger than the name was that he encountered the same name on paperwork at the next base to which he was assigned. Apparently Mr. (name) was transferred to the same place.

-Cynthia