One of my favorite court transcripts is Sheppard v. Speir.
The Court: All right. Now, do you have some objection to him being renamed Samuel Charles?
Sheppard: Yes.
The Court: Why? You think it’s better for his name to be Weather’by Dot Com Chanel-
Sheppard: Well, the-
The Court: Just a minute for the record.
Sheppard: Sorry.
The Court: Chanel Fourcast, spelled F-o-u-r-c-a-s-t? And in response to that question, I want you to think about what he’s going to be-what his life is going to be like when he enters the first grade and has to fill out all [the] paperwork where you fill out-this little kid fills out his last name and his first name and his middle name, okay? So I just want-if your answer to that is yes, you think his name is better today than it would be with Samuel Charles, as his father would like to name him and why. Go ahead.
Sheppard: Yes, I think it’s better this way.
That was a wild read, thanks for sharing. I’m so glad the kid had a father that cared, and that he got the custody and succeeded in changing that name!
Read the whole thing. That was wild. I think, alone, Weatherby (said together) isn’t the worst name I’ve ever heard but all the rest is cuckoo banana pants. Based on what came out of the court proceedings that woman had some PROBLEMS.
cuckoo banana pants
Taking that for my next kids name!
I feel like the most shocking part of all of this is that this woman who is in and out of jail, has 3 other kids, and can’t hold down a job for more than a few weeks managed to get a whole-ass trial about this.
At my job, I come across a lot of children’s names. So many, that I can actually sympathize with parents who want an odd name. Names are supposed to be a unique identifier, so if you wanna name a kid “Revolution Fighter” or “Czarlanda,” I get it. I can certainly find a kid with that name in our databases faster than I can find a “John Anderson” or an “Adam Wu.”
What really kills me is parents who name their kids a normal sounding name, but with an insane spelling. I’m talking like “Shelley” spelled “Schelei” or “Alexander” spelled “Alexzander.” You’re not being clever or cute, you’re just going to make your child’s life unnecessarily harder as they have to spell their name out every. single. time.
We still have about 5 years before the first wave of incorrectly-spelled Khaleesis start showing up at county courthouses en masse.
What is the correct spelling? Is that even a name?
It’s a title given to Daenerys in Game of Thrones, the Doth’raki word for “queen”. Her subjects call her that but a lot of dumbasses thought it was her name.
Khaleesi is the title of a fictional character in Game of Thrones, but not a proper name.
I read this a while ago (scroll down into section II for the graphs) which conducted a survey to see how happy people were with their names. The consensus seems to be that, for the most part, people just want names that don’t annoy them constantly. Very common names rank lower than less common names, until the names become very uncommon. More normal or traditional names rank higher than more modern or creative names.
The conclusion I drew was that people want a normal name spelled a normal way, that is not too common. Why? Because if your name is too common, you are always confused with other people (cue saying “Michael” in a crowded room and having 5 people turn towards you). But if your name is too uncommon, people will constantly mis-spell and mispronounce it, so you will constantly either be correcting people or having to ignore it. If you have a common name with a unique spelling, then people will always misspell your name unless you spell it out for them. And of course, if you are named after a sci fi character or a name that rhymes with your twin, you will probably be bullied for it in middle school.
So if you are naming a kid, your best bet is to look through the current common baby names and pick one somewhere between 100 and 1000 most popular, after eliminating weird spellings or names that can easily be turned into mean nicknames. Bonus points if you can tie the name into your cultural heritage or you have an admirable anscestor to name your kid after.
I have a first name that’s been in use for a couple thousand years now. I’m happy with it. They’re classics for a reason.
A simple safe bet is to choose a name from a related language.
For example, Renato is common in Portuguese but not in Spanish, however no Spanish speaking person is going to misspell it (and to this example, I doubt anyone speaking a European language would)
I have friends with really common names, like Mike and Robert Jones common. They don’t want to change it, but it has been a tremendous pain in their asses. It’s annoying to be the 3rd person in your class with the same first name, but imagine having a high school class with someone who has the same first and last name.
That spelling of Alexzander a lot of times comes from non American countries (maybe Czech? Unsure)
Look at Alex Lifesons real name lol. I cant spell it
Not actually why they did it. I can quote the parent here, because for some reason they felt the need to immediately justify the spelling. “I just thought it’d be cool to do something different.”
He has a Serbian name though, which is definitely not the same as just spelling it weird on purpose.
name out every. single. time.
“Czarlanda,” I get it. I
Names aren’t supposed to be unique. Your whole name doesn’t even need to be unique. And when you adda middle-name or two, no matter what basic ass names you’ve chosen it’s gonna be unlikely that anyone within reasonable distance would be named exactly the same.
Thank God my country has a law preventing this type of child abuse
It’s a child not a vanity plate
So many people don’t understand that children are people and people have rights. You are responsible for your children, you don’t own them. If you don’t like that, simply don’t have kids.
To the people downvoting this, you are the problem.
Children are people, not your property. You owe your kids a loving, caring, and supportive environment because it was your choice to have them. They did not choose to be born, they did not choose you as parents, they do not owe you anything. If you treat them well, they will support you and love you. If they do not, then you did something wrong.
If you think your children owe you anything, don’t have kids and go see a therapist.
I think they are downvoting because of the implication that having a not-cringy legal name is a legal right. In almost all places, it isn’t. The general sentiment of the comment is correct - you shouldn’t do stupid bullshit to your kids for your own amusement. But saying it is a “right” is incorrect in a very weird way.
I do think its a right for people to not have stupid cringey names. Thats part of why you can legally change your name. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, children are not granted that ability and are thus stuck with their shitty name their parent gave them.
Do I think naming your child Jahckqylynn is child abuse? No, but should children be condemned to 18 years of living with that name because their parents are cringey and dumb? I also think no. Now naming your child Margarita Corona? Yes that is fucked up and borderline child abuse
They can legally change their name before 18, in merkkka anyway. But yea its harder as a minor, and outside of last name changed for marriage its a lot of beaurocratic bs, ie time and money. I dont mean to counter your point, its a valid point. But for any Jackleneighs or whatever the fuck whod rather be Jackies, or Jackies whod rather be James, its possible sooner than 18. Again it be easier to wait tho…
Well… I think that point could be argued. Both the EU charter and the German constitution say right at the start in article 1 that “Human dignity is inviolable”. I’d say that giving your kid some dumbass name violates their dignity. So it is very much a legal right.
Worst I’ve seen: Shithead
Pronounced: Shih-theed
Spelled: Shit head
Sometimes things dont translate well to English. Like the common Indian surname Dikshit
I had a kid in high school with the same name. It was a normal name in his country. Everyone just started calling him Shitty and he embraced it lol.
This next guy, hes a real poth ead.
I know someone with relatives in China where they gave their kids nicknames that roughly translate to “first baby”, “second baby”, etc. They’re all middle aged adults now and they’re still addressed by the same nicknames. So you have kids listening to their grandparents talk about “second baby” and imagining a baby, but then you meet them and it’s an old man.
A number of traditional names the world over are literally “first son”, etc. Not to mention all the names that mean “so-and-so got me pregnant with this one.” Normal names are only normal because we’re used to them, not because they aren’t made-up bullshit.
70% of the names have a meaning usually, at least the most used names in Italy have a meaning in a way or another, so i suppose it’s the same for all the countries
I think people in English have lost the connection between their name and its original meaning. No one thinks about the fact that naming your kid “Peter” is the same as naming him “Rock”, or that a brook(e) is a little river.
I think it’s for all languages, if the name is not very similiar or the same to the original word or meaning it’s hard for someone to make a connection. So yeah, i agree
We don’t teach meaning of names anymore that’s the big one. My coworker just had a kid and ran a list of like 5 names past me. When I pointed out what each one means and their origin he firmly threw all of them out the window and was horrified.
It was mostly random bullshit names with weird spellings.
He ended up naming his kid Herma. Which he claimed sounded nice, when I asked him if he knew what the word ment he said no.
His new daughter has a very unfortunate name.
His kid but like man… That’s goanna suck later in life.
Is it not just feminine of Herman? Nothing comes up on Wiktionary.
From what i gather herman is germanic for “army/warrior man” and herma is a feminine version. Both derived from the greek god, Hermes.
In my family (and some friends families too) sometimes we came up with a name and think about the meaning of that meaning too, idk how much common is it tbh.
I think it really depend on the culture
I think everyone knows what Brooke means. Brooks (the rivers) are nice. And it is now a common name. So Brooke is a reasonable thing to name a girl. Similar to Rose or Ruby.
I attended my kids award ceremony (he’s 10) and there were multiple girls ages 11 and 12 called Khaleesi and I shook my head
I get naming your kid after a cultural figure, but it drives me nuts that so many people believe her name is khaleesi.
Plenty of people might actually think that, but Prince, Queen, Princess, and different variations in different languages are common enough names already. It’s possible plenty to most of those people just like the title and know it’s not her actual name. Not directed at you, just some people might not realize that the phenomenon was popular before GoT existed.
Particularly when the spelling of Daenerys already had a major “millennial parent” aesthetic.
I wish I was named kitchenaid whiskey jones
You can always change it
I do not understand the “no popular names” rule that some parents seem to live and die by.ust be a recent thing too right, I feel like so many people in the past were named after a relative that the parents admired.
its quite simple - they want their child to be special and/or they want their child to make them special
That, or they grew up in a situation like me where I knew 14 people named Mike, 8 named Peter, 12 Jacobs, and 9 Anthonys.
I was always glad my parents chose an uncommon name for me.
Yeah jiggle is an odd name.
I’m a third of my name in a row
I was always glad my parents chose an uncommon name for me.
There’s plenty of uncommon names to choose from without misspelling a brand name and sticking that on your kid for life.
There is a difference between addressing why mainstream taste may shift, vs the exact outcomes of that shift.
Fair enough.
i had four teachers per grade at my elementary and every class had at least four stephanies
Personally for me if it’s too popular I would feel cheap using it. Like I can’t ever name a cat Loki; it’s too obvious. But there’s a pretty big ocean of names between John and x_0 to choose from.
If the name’s too common it fails as being a quick identifier. That doesn’t mean you need to retrieve a name from an extinct language to make it unique. Just pick a name that 2 to 5 people you know have.
We need to normalize naming ourselves, why should we let someone who doesn’t know us yet decide what we should be called forever?
I get you’ve got to be called something but there’s no reason we can’t decide something else later.
I think you can change your name in most places
I’m not saying you can’t, just that it should be normalized for people to take agency like that.
But like, you’d still name a name before that, at least for official documents and such. Normalizing renaming is fine, but I see that as somewhat separate from parents naming their children to begin with.
I’m talking about normalizing picking your own name which is different than just being able to change your name.
Sure, but when do you propose someone pick their own name? What are they referred to before that point? I know there have been cultures where what you are suggesting is exactly how they handle it, but in societies that have identification numbers and birth records, they need to be called something before they are able to choose their own name.
Like, the actual, physical logistics of what you propose doesn’t make sense to me. Normalizing changing your own name to something you choose later, though, does make sense.
What does “normalize” mean to you? It’s not uncommon. I know several people who have done this at different ages, for different reasons. Are you saying people should talk about it more? Like “Hey, I’m Dave but my name used to be Jim”?
Usually people just send it the paperwork and then use their new name. It’s a normal thing that normal people do and it doesn’t really raise any eyebrows for normal people.
Anytime someone has found out I changed my name I’m barraged by questions about it.
It’s not unheard of to change names but most people won’t accept “because I wanted to choose my name” as a valid reason.
If we named ourselves, I guess our names would also serve as a lasting reminder of what our 5 year old selves thought was cool.
I mean, that’s not such a bad thing in the long run but it might get tough when you’re in your teens
Billie Eilish has several middle names. Eilish is in fact one of them. One of them, however, is “Pirate”. Because her parents allowed her big brother to choose one of them when she was born.
Why she doesn’t go by Pirate, I’ll never understand.
I was thinking more when you become an adult you pick your name, I did that and over a decade later I still feel like my name suits me.
It’s a normal name, nothing crazy or spelled weird.
Hm…I don’t know. I think terrible names are popular enough presently that when the generation being born right now is school-aged, a McKeinsleigh will probably need to use a last initial in class to not get her confused with the other one(s).
Very much this. The people who make these kinds of posts forget that this is how names are invented and evolved.
People who complain about what can be termed “Tragedeigh” names seem to be fine with “Kayleigh” and “Ashleigh”, despite both being a later variation on “Kayley” and “Ashley”, with the former not becoming popular until the 80s - and because of a song, at that.
In general, people have a very hard time with the idea that language in general, and names specifically, evolve over time. Whatever was commonplace until they reach, say, their 30s is what’s “right”. Any variation after that is “wrong”. When, of course, it was just as mutable when they were young and before they were born, but they weren’t around for the latter and were equally mutable when they were themselves young.
There can often be an unpleasant class/race undertone to it as well.
Expect those examples you gave appeared due to mixing of standard phonetics of different languages. They where two normal things spelled correctly pushed together.
That’s where the VAST majority of change in language and names comes from. Spellings, or sounds picked up from other languages due to mixed language or dialect households.
So even the new spelling is still normal by the standards of the environment it came from.
Many of the recent nonsense names are entirely abnormal in their origin. Having no root in language, dialect, religion, history or culture.
They are entirely bullshit made up nonsense. Which is NOT normal historically. Even naming after a video game character with a weird name is more normal than what’s been happening.
What’s not standard about the phonetics of Emmaleigh? Or Graycyn, for that matter, to go with the example in the screnshot?
“Gray” is a word, and even an extant first name (Gray Davis, for example, or Gray O‘Brien). “Cyn” is a common syllable, like in “cynic”, but it’s also a name itself - it’s a common nickname to shorten “Cyndy” or “Cyntha” (eg Madame Cyn or Cyn Santana).
You’re fine with Graycyn, right?
Having no root in language, dialect, religion, history or culture.
This part was important, it’s not just phonetics.
Emmaleigh
This is still a dumbass name that serves no purpose but to reveal the parents’ ignorance and desire to give their kid a “unique” name. You can make a case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley. Emmaleigh is just try hards desperate to be different.
“Gray” is a word, and even an extant first name (Gray Davis, for example, or Gray O‘Brien). “Cyn” is a common syllable, like in “cynic”, but it’s also a name itself - it’s a common nickname to shorten “Cyndy” or “Cyntha” (eg Madame Cyn or Cyn Santana).
You’re fine with Graycyn, right?
This sort of thought process is, as I understand it, exactly what @Holytimes@sh.itjust.works is complaining about. Graycyn is stupid as fuck. Yeah, I could name my kind Pterry or Psimon and say “Yeah, but we have words like pterodactyl and psychic, so it’s consistent with other exceptions to the standards of English orthography,” but it would still be stupid as fuck and cruel to name a kid that.
I think you would have a better argument with people naming their kids Khaleesi or something. Yeah, it’s not a name that I would give to a kid, but it’s already entered the language as an explicit borrowing of a character’s title that entered popular culture. I don’t see how that’s any different than something like a person learning French and deciding they prefer the name Guillaume to William and naming their kids that. Deciding you want to name your kid Mychael, or Mathyew, or Jeze🔔, or something because your child is just too precious to share a name with all the plebs who have the same name with a conventional spelling isn’t some grand evolution of language, nor does it add any novel meaning to the name. All it does it let people know that your kid is the child of a couple of feckless muppets.
This part was important, it’s not just phonetics.
I gave examples of having a root in language - specifically, the English language.
But, okay, a name has to have all of those things when coined to not be stupid. That would mean that you have equal disdain for Vanessa? It was coined by Jonathan Swift. It has none of the things you claim are important. It’s just a combination of two syllables taken from a friend’s last and first name - Esther Vanhomrigh. Myra? Coined by Fulke Greville, it’s just an anagram of “Mary”. Wendy? Coined by J. M. Barrie, it’s taken from a young girl mispronouncing the word “friend” as “fwendy”.
There’s plenty more. I’m sure you’re equally annoyed by all of these, rather than accepting them as perfectly fine and normal because they were coined before you were born.
This is still a dumbass name that serves no purpose but to reveal the parents’ ignorance and desire to give their kid a “unique” name.
I mean, at least you’ve dropped the facade that you have a reasoned, linguistic rationale for your dislike and are now leaning into “it’s stupid because I personally don’t like it”.
You can make the case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley.
Okay, so, “-ly” is equally valid as an English place-name spelling varient of “leah”. Don’t believe me? Ask the English Place-Name Society: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/epns/documents/journal/49-2017/jepns49-2017-wager-95-126.pdf
[…]the Old English (OE) noun lēah, described as ‘incomparably the commonest topographical term in English place-names’ (Gelling and Cole 2014: 220), and usually appearing in place-names ending in current spellings of -ley, -ly, or -leigh[…]
Graycyn is stupid as fuck.
Again, it’s good to see you dropping the pretence of having a reasoned position.
Deciding you want to name your kid Mychael, or Mathyew, or Jeze🔔, or something because your child is just too precious to share a name with all the plebs who have the same name with a conventional spelling isn’t some grand evolution of language, or does it add any novel meaning to the name.
You’re right, spellings should only change if it also changes the meaning of the word. That’s why I shame people for calling their children Amy rather than the original Aimee; Edith rather than Eadgyth; Alice rather than Aalis; Walter/Walther rather than Waldhar; and so many more.
You’re definitely right about Emmaleigh. The only proper way to spell it is Emelye. All subsequent spelling changes is just hipsters who aren’t changing the meaning at all. Imagine calling your daughter a stupid as fuck, dumbass name like “Emily”! For shame!
It really would have been more concise to just write “I don’t care what you write, I’m right and screw everyone who disagrees.”
You keep treating every single innovation as though it’s assured that it will one day be adopted into the “standard” (as much as such a thing can be said to actually exist) language at some point in the future, and dismissing anyone who disagrees. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is actually part of that natural evolution of language you hold so dear. If enough people see a novel form or word and reject it, for whatever reason, that innovation has hit a dead end and won’t last. The sort of names you’re championing might be enjoying rising popularity right now, but it’s a mistake to assume that means all of them will inevitably become accepted. Some of them will, and many more will fade into obscurity.
These names are not immune to any criticism just because you’ve decided that anything goes and to say otherwise is bad linguistics. Names come and go all the time, some for some fairly rational reasons, some for entirely arbitrary ones. It’s not hard to rationalize why Adolf has fallen off precipitously as a given name in the US, but what’s the basis for Clarence going from one of the top 50 names for boys in the US to not even cracking the top 1000 for the last 45 years or so? The truth is, it could be anything. Sometimes people stop using a name because it’s considered old fashioned, sometimes it’s supplanted by a new variant that proves more popular, and other times it’s just because tastes have changed and people find it ugly or embarrassing, rather than being the perfectly normal name it had once been.
I am, however, unaware of any case in which a name faced with losing its popularity or acceptability has been saved by someone riding high on their own self-righteousness telling anyone who dares criticize a name “You’re all ignorant cretins, don’t you know linguistic prescriptivism is not widely accepted amongst linguists?” while ignoring the fact that they themselves are trying to be prescriptive in their own way. Natural language is not, to the best of my knowledge, a teleological phenomenon. Just like evolution in living beings doesn’t have any special design or end goal to be worked towards, there is no perfect form, no grand design that languages are all working towards that you can compare against to assess whether a given innovation will be accepted or rejected in the course of time.
Outside such obviously insane stuff like the child abuse masquerading as a name that Elon Musk inflicts upon his children, none of us can say with certainty whether a given name will stand the test of time or not. People choosing to adopt them or not, giving their opinions on them and popular sentiment is all part of how that will ultimately get determined, and you just want to come along and browbeat people for engaging in that and expressing their own views on names. How about you propose your own objective criteria for analyzing the viability of a given name going forward, oh wise one?
Okay, so, “-ly” is equally valid as an English place-name spelling varient of “leah”. Don’t believe me? Ask the English Place-Name Society:
And? Again, thank you for admitting that despite cranking out a fair bit of text, you don’t seem to do so great on reading comprehension. Just to repeat it again, with emphasis for you.
You can make a case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley.
Huh, what do you know, the -ley/-leigh bit actually means something in the name Ashley, and it shares this meaning the -leigh used in place names. Yet Emily is derived from a patrician surname from ancient Rome adapted to better conform to the norms of English, or as a feminine form of the name Emil. In either case, the -ly in the name Emily is not cognate to the English -ley or -leigh. So instead of being one variant amongst many equivalent lingering forms that predate modern efforts to standardize English orthograpy, that -ly isn’t even a discreet morpheme on its own, and the name would be better treated split into Emil and -y. But sure, tell me again how it’s unconscionable to say that people deciding to jazz it up and be extra by turning it into Emmaleigh are the cool-headed, linguistically grounded voices of reason in this case.
Ignoring all the straw-manning which has nothing to do with anything I wrote…
To be clear - your contention is that a spelling in a name can only legitimately be changed if the new spelling is an equivalent alternate spelling of the same syllable from a different context and where the two spellings must have an equivalnet definition in that context, but that definiteion does not need to be relevant to the name itself? I don’t think you’ve said that last part, but I’m kind of assuming that you wouldn’t argue that someone called Ashley or Ashleigh would necessarily have to have been born in a meadow surrounded by ash trees.
So…how do you feel about Kayleigh? Derived from Caoilfhionn. Means fair-haired. The spelling “Kayleigh” is around 40-odd years old. You dislike it for the same reasons and with the same vociferousness as Emmaleigh, correct?
And you are, of course, fully in favour of Oakleigh, since it’s exactly the same as Ashleigh except with oak trees rather than ash trees. The fact that it’s a very new variation has no impact on your feelings towards it, right?
people have a very hard time with the idea that language in general […] evolve[s] over time
Writing is not language. Speaking is language (edit: in this particular case), and there’s no phonetic change here. If a spelling is due to another language that the parents, or really anyone, speak, that’s fine. But if your language (read: English) has such a terrible spelling system that people can do these things completely arbitrarily and the spelling is still somewhat readable, there’s something wrong with that writing system (not with the people!)
Writing is absolutely part of language. If your point is that English has weird, illogical spelling rules, then you’re right. That’s not a new observation. People have been writing about that since spelling was standardised.
And it’s been changing for a very long time.
How do you feel when you see the name “Amy”. Do you dislike it? What if I told you that the original spelling in English was “Aimee”? “Amee” was also very common once upon a time. “Amy” was a much later spelling and was once considered a cringey, trendy “Tragedeigh”. As, as I said above, were Ashleigh & Kayleigh.
But you don’t think of them that way, because they’re now common. “Kayleigh” only gained popularity 40 years ago. “Ashleigh” is less than 100 years old. And already people don’t bat an eye at it. But they will at “Emmaleigh”, even though it’s exactly the same evolution.
I don’t have a problem with language and names evolving, I have a problem with them evolving into something dumb.
What is or is not considered dumb in any particular culture is normally nothing more than a function of the age of that thing.
For example, Wendy is just considered a normal name today, but people were mocked for calling their daughters Wendy once upon a time. It was invented for the book Peter Pan and was derived from a child referring to their friend as their “Fwendy”.
Vanessa was once considered a stupid, trendy, quirky name, being another one taken from literature.
Cheryl - a combination of Cherie and Beryl. Melinda - a combination a Mel and Linda. Annabelle - a combination of Anna and Belle. Annabeth - guess what that’s a combination of?
All of those got the same push-back for being stupid and contrived. Yet now they’re just…names.
Give it 50 years and people called Khaleesi and Katniss will be talking about how stupid all these new names are, rather than sensible ones like thiers.
Henry: Come on, Junior.
IndianaKWJ: Will you please stop calling me Junior?
Sallah: Please, what does this mean? Always with this… Junior?
Henry: That’s his name: Henry Jones, Junior.IndianaKWJ: I like… KitchenAid Whisky Jones.Henry: We named the dog KITCHENAID WHISKY JONES.
I knew a Richard Raper. As an adult.
Name changes aren’t that expensive 😒
You can tell they made up that second name by looking for random objects in the room lol
How was it again in that one movie? Emplyes Mustwashhands
I know if a person whose legal first and middle name is margarita corona
2020 was probably especially trying for her.
