Naming Your Child
 

Ever come across someone and wonder what their parents were thinking when they named them? Sometime ago, I was on a conference call for work when we heard someone call in late. The moderator paused and asked who had joined.

"Walter."
"Walter, what's your last name?"
"Melon."

...

There was a long pause from the group. Yep: Walter Melon. It was so distracting and I couldn't stop from cracking up, eventually having to mute the phone. How is it that someone like that gets through their childhood years? How do you grow up and not hate your parents for it? I can't imagine the daily torture that the poor guy must have gone through.

Ah, I suppose it could be worse, though.

Good morning, class! My name is...

I hope that is a mistake.

Once someone gets the courage to explain it to her, she'll be asking people to "just call me Susan."

I have a list of favorites. There are numerous "What were you thinkings" that we've collected over the years at work.

Oh crap. I think I can't tell you some of the best ones because of HIPPA. :P I'll have to go through the list and find the ones that weren't patients.

Oh, wait ... this guy's a probation officer, so I can tell yah ...

Shane Shady.

See, we actually thought about all this crap... we wanted names that were common enough that people would know them, but not the big common names everybody was using. And we wanted names with only one spelling, and we made sure the initials didn't spell anything embarassing.

You can't plan for everything. My parents thought they chose the perfect name, common, no obvious mocking nicknames arising from it, no strange spellings... end result? I hate my name because it's so boring.

To that end I plan on giving my kids more interesting (though not outright weird) names, and I'm sure they'll resent them for their own reasons just like me.

I once had a neigbor who had the last name of "Rule." He named his two kids "Slide" and "Golden." I kid you not. I always liked my first name until Bill Clinton came along. At the time I was working a job that required us to wear name tags. The joke got old before I heard the first one.:rolleyes:

LOL, ok. When I worked in the fraud department of Fleet Bank, I had to make outbound calls to cardholders and verify their card activity. You had to make these calls through a dialer, which would bring up the customer automatically. You could manually work the dialer as well. If you could not get in touch with the customer, you had the option of sending a letter with a number that they could call Fleet to verify the activity.

Well, I would come across the strangest names, especially if they were not English names. Imagine my surprise when the name:

"Ding Ding"

came up on my screen. No way was I talking to that person (I was laughing too damned hard), so they got the letter. :D

Another name I came across (not at Fleet, but at another job):

Bhang Pow

:haha:

Hope I'm not breaking any laws by revealing those names...heh!

I worked with a guy named Warren Pete

A gal I met at a party has a teenage daughter. There is a set of twins in her daughter's class. Their first names are pronounced

o-ran-gel-o
and
le-mon-gel-o

emphasis on the second syllable

They are written like this:

Orangejello
Lemonjello

Oh how could I ever forget THIS name:

Scenario: Radio station in Baltimore. DJ asks people to call up and give shout outs.

DJ: "Yeah hellooo who's this?"

Caller: "Yeah um hi. My name is Shayleilakweykwey!" (since there is no way I could spell this properly, I am spelling it the way it sounded.)

DJ: "Shayleila who-what??!!"

Caller: "Shayleilakweykwey!"

DJ: "Is that your whole name?"

Caller: "No that's my first name!"

:haha: I cried rivers of laughter on that one. That had to be THE most ghetto name in the history of names!!! :D

Their mum should be inprisoned over that, talk about cruel and unusual.

I've heard of the brothers Orangejello and Lemonjello many times over the last few years... I think it's an urban legend.

We named our daughter Ashlynn Illyrica Winter. TS picked out the first name, I picked out the second (it's the name of an ancient greek city that I once read about, and I thought it was pretty), and Winter---well, it's a pretty name, and she was born when there was, unexpectedly in La., snow on the ground.

Ashlynn is just normal enough. Illyrica is pretty much unique, and Winter is just pretty.

I hate common, or overly popular names....I wanted her to have a name that no one else had.

Heywood Jablowme.:)

If i recall correctly I think in Germany and also France you cant just pick a name out the air for your child. The name that goes on their birth certificate has to conform to certain standards.

Mine conformed to standards at the time and a lot of good that ended up doing me.:D

In Canada too, the government can reject your child's name and make you pick a new one.

what!? how dare they? that's wrong on so many levels. what is the justification?

That it's a form of child abuse. It's rarely called into play, when I read about it they listed examples of rejected names, like 4175896, or Satan, etc.

I think in Germany the name has to be one of the names in the big name book.....I think...

Yeah, I was in that book. My good Swiss-German Mom picked my name out if her very own self. A lot of good those books do! (bitter, bitter, bitter - flounces off in a huff to hate dear old Mom)

This topic seems familiar to me, and so for those of you who already heard me relate this gem:

My mom went to high school with two brothers. Last name was Pullins. First names? Richard and Peter.

i have numerous funny names to list, but wolf mentioned hippa, and i think i'm better safe than sorry.

cough*nusspickle*cough

ahem

HIPPA only applies to healthcare workers, not car salesmen.

He knows CPR....

well, we call it by another name, but it's the same privacy act bullshit that i have to deal with. and i did say that "wolf mentioned hippa" not "i have to comply with hippa"

and i'm not a car salesman ;)

My name is a good boring, sensible, biblical name. Mark Stevens. 60% of the people I've just met call me Steve. Fucking parents ;-) Gonna name my firstborn Kissmyass Stevens. And your name is......?

well, we call it by another name, but it's the same privacy act bullshit that i have to deal with.

Really? I had no idea you guys were bound by any privacy laws at all.

A friend of mine named her daughter Noa, proud of herself that she'd made it up and it was totally unique. She was disappointed when I told her it's actually a traditional Hebrew girls name.

And though I hate my first name (Jennifer) I'm pretty partial to my middle name, Lee. I briefly attempted to go by Lee instead around sixth grade, but it never caught on.

yeah, well if you think about it, i could really fuck someone up if i wanted to break the law. i have access to thousands of customers' ss#'s, income, address, signatures. everything i need to buy a car in their name, get credit cards, whatever.

what the hell is someone going to do with the knowledge that you have a cyst on your ass?


our next door neighbor, Garnet Ford had a salesman that stole 8 identities and fled the state with something upwards of $50K in creditcard purchased items. if you see him his name is Nelson Santiago. crap eater.

Jennifer is a nice name! Now I'm curious about your last name tho, you mentioned you'd never name a child blue because it wouldn't work?

Yeah I realize I gave my real name out on the internet. I don't give a shit. If you (anonymous psychos) want to show up and fuck with me give it your best shot.

Just don't kill me in the shower tho because that kind of freaks me out a little.

Jennifer is a nice name! Now I'm curious about your last name tho, you mentioned you'd never name a child blue because it wouldn't work?

It has a predominant "oo" sound. A lot of names I like sound terrible with it--Julie, Lucas, Lucy...

what the hell is someone going to do with the knowledge that you have a cyst on your ass?

Ask you if you plan on sellin' that thing once it's removed?

Kitsune,, this is weird but that town abrevation is for Paragould Arkansas , where i live , i looked up that name , and had to go back to the 97-98 phone book but i found it ,




small world we live in ain't it ?????:eek:

his is weird but that town abrevation is for Paragould Arkansas , where i live

"He's posting... from inside your house! Get out of there, now!"

Sperm Donor named me...he got to the birth certificate folks before my mom did.

Fucker.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

I had a call from a customer once....who's name was Pobya Hymen....

And yes, he was a gynecologist.

At one of my old jobs, I dealt with a customer with the first name Semen.

blue goo?

Fortescue?
Lewis?
Truman?
Figenshue?

first name!? ouch!

THAT, was friggin hilarious.

Actually, its amazing how many "invisible people" have access to the very same information. At one point for a while I helped out a friend who ran his own janitorial business. Several of his clients were large car dealerships. One of his employees quit abruptly on him, so for a while I went in to the local Nissan dealership every night to do their cleaning. It was required to dust off and clean every item of furniture including desks. The paperwork those car salesmen left laying around was astonishing. I could have easily stolen 20 or 30 identities, no problem. They also had the keys to every car hanging on this carosel thing in one corner of the dealership. Each key was tagged as to what car it went with. I'd amuse myself with the fantasy of becoming Ms. Eva So-Ritch and speeding off down the highway in a sporty little Nissan. I figured if I pulled off the caper at 8:00pm when the last salesman left, I'd have at the very least until 7:00am (and probably much longer) when the first one's arrived for the day - a good 11 hour head start. By then I would have switched the plates at least twice and been damn near the Mexican border. It rather surprises me that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.;)

I think something similar happened at a dealership in Royersford, except their guy wasn't smart enough to flee.

He stole a lot more money direct from the finance company, though.

we had a wrangler stolen just last night. 2:20 am. got em on tape. three weeks ago, some stupid kid stole the wheels off of a Rubicon Wrangler. One saturday 4 years ago or so, we came in and found that 10 cars ( 300M's and LHS's 1 town&country) had had their chrome wheels stolen. three minivans, one new wrangler and now this used one makes 5 stolen vehicles since i've been here (6yrs). not too bad considering. Mari, you;re right. Part of the new rules say that all paperwork must be locked in desks or offices.

Snopes says ... nopes.

I'm still stuck with the HIPPA thing. I can't give the real deal on this one ... but there is a family, let's just say their last name is "Blue" ... There are brother's who's first names run along the pattern of one being called "Midnight" and the other "Navy".

Mom's name is "Periwinkle." I have admitted all three. I don't know if dad has ever been identified.

The police chief of Ambler, PA is Rocco Wack. If he is not working when you call looking for him, the desk sergeant will respond "Wack's off."

The principle chief of the Cherokee Nation is Wilma Mankiller.

we had a wrangler stolen just last night. 2:20 am. got em on tape. three weeks ago, some stupid kid stole the wheels off of a Rubicon Wrangler. One saturday 4 years ago or so, we came in and found that 10 cars ( 300M's and LHS's 1 town&country) had had their chrome wheels stolen. three minivans, one new wrangler and now this used one makes 5 stolen vehicles since i've been here (6yrs). not too bad considering.


Damn Jim , so thats how you can afford to live in that big house !!how do you keep from getting cought ???

My sister in law is called Jennifer :)

I got lumbered with three fornames heheh. Danielle Sara Eleana Coombs

I was in the grocery store last week and got a good laugh. You know how folks have been naming there kids after products and fortune 500 companies? There was a woman running around the store calling to her child...Chase!

You think they may have gotten their ideas from here?
 

Hah! Good site, Dagney!

"How about Lou? When I was in England, I heard that name and it seemed to have a little tinkle to it. Randy is good too."

That's another difficult aspect -- what if your name means something to other cultures?

I was always curious what would happen if your last name was "Bates" and you were rich enough to have a butler. That might be a bit uncomfortable.

When my friend was in Physician Assistant school, one of the books that he had to read was a well-known medical tome on anatomy by Bates.

The professor, completely deadpan, advised the class that they would "have to master Bates daily."

I wonder if everybody now does. Another job I once had was a horticultural technician for a big indoor plant maintenance outfit - you know the people who come in and take care of the plants in those big indoor atriums in snappy office buildings and stuff? I took care of many of the downtown office building accounts and people would have plants on their desks and standing in their offices that I needed to take care of. I had free access to the offices of bank presidents, lawyers, stock brokers, you name it. They'd go off to lunch or out for a 2 hour conference leaving client's files spread all over their desks. People's home address, credit card numbers, social security number, bank accounts, investments - all there in open view. As "the plant lady" it was like I wore an invisibility cloaking shield. No one ever thought twice about me as I walked down the halls with my watering cans and plants. I could have wrecked havoc if I'd felt like it. I think it just goes to show that the majority of people are still pretty honest, really. But all it takes is one, like the guy who stole your car last night.:(

I don't feel comfortable posting details, but let's just say I really wish we had a card swipe system at work that would identify what card was used every time a door is open, rather than metal keys.

But you had the deceny to make the uncommon name her middle name. Do you have any idea what kind of things kids in public schools can do with the name Illyrica?

My wife dislikes her first name enough that she used her middle name. After 20 years I have to remind myself that the name I call her is her middle name, usually when filling out paperwork. Since we use her first initial and full middle name or first initial and middle initial, or sometimes first name, etc. her credit report lists all of the combinations as AKA (also known as). I think there were six or eight variations listed there.


..and no, I will not tell you what her first name is. While I have never held much back from the Cellar, spending the next 20 years on the couch is a high price to pay for full disclosure.

My father's a doctor (not an ob-gyn) and one of his pet peeves was people who named their kids after drug brand names or medical procedures. He swore to me that there are children out there name Lidocaine, with maybe a slight variation for spelling.

I still only half believe it. Unfortunately, the social security adminstration only lists the 1000 most popular first names, so I cannot verify this.

That mean plant waterer right? Gotta love PC naming. Least when I did a stint in a nursery they called it what it was.

What was her first name by the way?

Yeah come on.. the couch is nothing...

just as long as we aren't talking about the doghouse.

Rich, does your wife read the cellar? I'm going to assume for now that her given name is........


.....uhm.......

.....er........


Hermione?

Gertrude.

No, no, wait ... I got it ... Hadassah.

child care professional?