Tag Archives: letters

Hello,
I work in a doctor’s office, a great place to hear stupid names!

Among some of my favorites:
Sioux, Navlette,Nurys-Ourina, Theobis,Mimosa,and Delight Champagne, all female.

And we have Jack Goff, Dick Littel, Peng Wen, and Richard Head, whose parents should all be shot.

We have the creative spellings of Bettiye,Rosemayre,Roi,Michel (pronounced mitchell),and Karyl (male).

And we have patients with the unfortunate names of Michael Jackson,Glenn Miller,Michael Jordan, Elizabeth Taylor, and Don Johnson.

I love your site and I’m so happy there’s someone else who hates all the trendy, yuppie, made up names that are polluting the country. Keep up the great site!

-Megan, who hates the fact that her name is now trendy.

Just wanted to add a name, don’t know if it’ll make it to your lists, but well, it’s worth a shot. I went to elementary school with a “Yorgana Sideboard.”

~Melina

i used to work at an upscale health club, managing their childcare center. tipper gore was a member, her cousin was the general manager, if that gives you any idea as to the social set of these people.

they gave their children horrendous names. here are a couple of examples:

giddings. a girl name.
boots. a baby boy (not a nickname).
harrison and hollis. two brothers.
channing. a baby boy.

as far as other awful names go, i know a couple who named their son after a character on a MUD (online role-playing game) they ran: pharaun.

-C.

I’m really enjoying the baby names page. I thought you might get a kick out of yet one more reason that a particular bad name is bad (from Part VII):

>>I named my little girl Tenlee, simply because My husband and I liked it. It is pronounced just like it sounds. I hope she loves her name as much as we do.<< Additionally, the name is also a pure phonetic transliteration of "Give {some object to} Me" in Hebrew. I hope the kid never has to go to Hebrew School, or visit Israel, or work with Israelis. I know that I would personally have a hard time keeping a straight face. Signed, An amused dual-national

My husband left me for a woman who was named (and i’m not kidding here) after the biscuit her mother craved during pregnancy – the biscuit (that’s Aussie for “cookie,” Americanskis) is a very plain, dunk it in the coffee type biscuit called “NICE” (pronounced like “niece”) but to give it a true French Flavour her mother put “Le” on the front so she is known as “Lenisse” – my home was wrecked by someone who is literally the biscuit!!!!!!!

And finally two poor children i know of are saddled with the names “Luna Power” and “Natas Power” now Luna I can handle as being slightly ok – but when you spell NATAS backwards we seem to have a new winner in the anti-christ race…..

-Rachael

I was born in 1954 and given the name Lanson, which wasn’t cool growing up with and isn’t cool now. Cannot find it in any name listing.

It’s not made up. It was my fathers cousins name. I’ve only seen it twice, once on a champagne bottle and once on an automatic door mat. I do alot of genealogy research. Bad names go back a long way. Here’s one I found, really, and it’s a girls name. Honest, I’m not making this up. Ready? Mahershallalhashbaz Gorton !!!!

Don’t put this on your site because some idiotic parent will probably think it’s cool!!!

Thanks for listening……my new and improved name..Lance

Oh, but Ms. Gorton’s not the only Mahershallalhashbaz out there.

Actor Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (note slightly different spelling) appeared on the TV show “Crossing Jordan.” And yep, it’s his birthname (although he changed his last name from Gilmore) and is often credited as simply M. Ali.

Like many very long, very odd names, it’s biblical (Isaiah 8:1-3). Mahershalalhashbaz is Isaiah’s son by “the prophetess.” God ORDERS him to give the kid this name.

So yes, it’s a boy’s name.

I worked for a couple of years as an editor at a company that created multimedia seminars featuring noted professionals from the tech industry. There were a few odd names that passed through, of course, but my all-time favorite was “Ransom Love.” Possibly the most cynical porn name ever conceived.

Now, my question — a few years ago, I read a news article about a pair of parents (in Switzerland or Sweden — I forget exactly where) who gave their kid a name that was more than twenty letters long and contained no vowels. Supposedly, they were subsequently fined by a court for inflicting such an inhumane name on their child. My question to you is simply whether you’ve heard this story or have any way of confirming it. I’ve already tried Snopes.com to see if it’s a reported hoax, but it didn’t turn up, nor have I been able to find it through Google. My hope is mainly that another of your readers may have already brought it to your attention.

And, of course, if the story is true, I’d love to know what the name was.

Thanks,
Alexander

Yep, the story is true, and comes out of Sweden, which has tight regulations on what you can and can’t name your kid. Most recently, Swedish officials rejected a couple wanting give their baby the middle name Superman, and the courts are busy mediating a suit between a family whose last name is the same as the name of the Scandinavian version of Surge soda, Urge. (It’s against the law to use a family name in a trademark iin Sweden so four of the six total members of the Urge family in the whole country are suing Coca-Cola. Makes you wonder about how McDonald’s handles it.)

Anyway, to answer Alexander’s question, according to Whiteboard News, the kid’s name was to be “Brfxxccxxmnpccccllllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116.” Pronounced “Albin.”

A local court last month fined them $750 for failing to register a first name for their child by his fifth birthday.Responding to the fine, the parents, who were not identified, submitted the 43-letter name, saying it was a “pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation.” The court rejected the name.

The parents took their case to an appeal court in Gothenburg, saying their son’s name should be seen in a pataphysical spirit.

Pataphysics was the invention of French absurdist writer and satirist Alfred Jarry, best known for his trilogy of Ubu plays.

It was purported to go beyond metaphysics and was the “science of imaginary solutions” or a logic of the absurd. It was analyzed in his book “Gestes et Opinions du Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien.”

The Gothenburg court rejected the appeal and ruled the parents must pay the fine.

I just found your site and giggled my way through it. And then realized that I have some names to contribute. My mom went to school with girls named Pepper Salter and Belle Tinker, and I know a boy named Pedro DePedro.

Lillie

I’d like to suggest an adition to your list of bad name combos. My hubby claims to have gone to school with a boy named Gunnar – his last name was Re – Gunnar Re. In our language (Danish) that’s pronounced very much like the STD gonorrhea, poor kid.

-Maren

This past weekend I went to a party. A couple were there with their 3 boys – Ulysses, Adonis, and baby Orion. I have no idea what the middle names are, but hope they’re more normal!

-K