Having nothing better to do yesterday, I start wandering around Baby Naming Forums and Bulletin Boards.

I came across the post of one mother-to-be who wanted to named her daughter Tyranny. Not Tierney or any trendy mis-spelling of the name. Tyranny . Yeah, as in:

1.A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.
2.The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
3.Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly.

www.dictionary.com

She didn't know or care what it meant -she just knew that it "sounded like a cute name".

Seriously -what the fuck is wrong with some people? Do they think that words are just a series of sounds, bereft of meaning?



BTW -before anyone comments on Gwyneth Paltrow's choice of Apple as the name for her offspring, consider this: Colby and Brie, both types of cheeses, rank among the most popular names in the U.S. for 2005, and it looks like the trend will keep growing. Personally, I'd rather be a fruit than be cheesy.

You know what...

I'm not even gonna get started in THIS thread.

Eh, who am I kidding. One of my mom's friends had 5 kids, all under the age of 10:
Tanquasia
Tajarequa
Tangueray
Rome
Turnell.
And you know black women, they can't afford to go to a certain place. So instead they just name their child after it. I don't know how many "China"s and "-Asia"s I know. Hell, I even know an Africa and an India.

my sister gave my nephew the middle name of Kafka named after a cat named after

who she'd never heard of. My mum is upset!

charlottegelin said:

That's hilarious. It would have been bad enough to be named after the man himself, but to be a "second generation copy" that takes after a cat?

retina said:

my mum says she could at least read one of his books or something so it doesn't sound so dumb
tragic!

DynamicSavior said:

That's not just a black thing. White middle-class folks are huge into that too. I know a pretty fair sized group of Asia's, China's, India's, Paris', a few London's, and a Kenya.

charlottegelin said:

Some people are special.

meow85 said:

we got Dakotas here in Australia which I think is weird

Got another dumbass name story. This one's a family one. Yay!

When my uncle and his common-law wife (both white) were expecting their oldest, my uncle had set his mind on the Cree Native name Klee-wik. (means "the laughing one") My aunt insisted there was no way her child was going to have an "Indian name" -as if there's something wrong with that. (she even said this in my presence, knowing full well I'm half Cree) The name she eventually picked for my cousin?


Cheyenne.
[Edited 1/22/06 4:56am]

meow85 said:

charlottegelin said:

White children being given "Indian" names is a touchy subject, and one that makes a lot of Natives uncomfortable, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. I'm definitely not a fan of the trend.

ever hear about the lady that named her son " L'emonjello"..which ouf course is just Lemon Jello. (some say it's true, some say it's a myth)

but seriously, my black women LUV to put " D' " in fron of every damned name to make it sound exotic or foreign

D'angelo
D'Shon

and of course my middle name is D'Andre (my momma used to be ghetto in the 60's, but she's reformed now )

meltwithu said:

I think that one's just a myth...

meow85 said:[quote]

meltwithu said:

these days..you just never know. there's ayoung girl at my job named Kazuel--so i said "Casual"--she said no Kazuel--i'm like ok, it's fucking casual with a fucked up spelling
[Edited 1/22/06 6:56am]

meow85 said:

I just posted those names in another thread.
Lemonjello(Leh-mon-jello)
Orangejello(Oran-jello)
Shithead(Shi-they-ed)

In one family: Wendy, Debby and Gary.

Now, maybe in America nothing would be wrong with these three names, but in Belgium this just sounds plain stupid.

A former girlfriend of mine was born in a very religious, protestant household, with six children. Their names were all biblical : Heman, Hanna, Hadassa, Eva, Elisabeth and Abigael.

george foreman named all his sons george, but that might just be lazy.
Hey George-
huh?
what?
who me?
yo!

A director I worked with in Vancouver was named Ling and her sisters' names were Ping, Ming and Ching...

i named my cat persephone, knowing full well about the greek with containing her name, but i never stopped to think that the damn name means 'bringer of destruction'.

so yeah, before i name any kids, i'm going to thoroughly research the meaning of the name.

meow85 said:

Yanno Meow...I was gonna say...I know a few white Asia's. and my very white sister in law wanted to name my nephew D'Vante....so this ain't just black women. Ya'll know me and my mother just had a fit so she changed her mind quickly.

On some level its more of a class thing than race....

I know there are at least 6 Ashley's on the varsity and jv teams...all black girls so its not all of us. Thank GAWD!!! Actually there's not one "ghetto" name on all 3 levels of b-ball team EXCEPT Tanisha.


I'll tell this story:

I knew this doctor and we were having this very conversation about names. He was talking about all the odd names that he's come across. he said he had this one patient that named her child "B'onka". So when he was speaking to the mother about the child, he said, "So how's bon-ka doing?" The mother had a fit and said "my chile's name is B-on-ka" Then he said OH..and just walked out the room.

Rhondab said:

Rhondab said:

That mom is bonkers for naming her child like that.

DynamicSavior said:

that's B'Onkers dammit.

meltwithu said:

Bianca!

charlottegelin said:

B'lanka?

The government of Honduras actually enacted a law to prevent people from giving their kids crazy-ass names.

There's an abundance of "Rocky's", "Conan's" and "Ronaldreagan's" as a result of '80s American culture.

The CRAZIEST shit was the child named Usmail after their parents saw it on the side of the truck in the states..... u.s. mail

I admit I've seen what I think to be some far-out names, but I'm curious to see you guys explain to me what makes a name "acceptable," in your minds?

Lammastide said:

in my mind, an acceptable name is a name that is not a sexually transmitted disease (i heard of a woman who named her child chlamydia) or a word with an evil definition or a word that will just induce ridicule (you know, like naming your kid alien)

blatantly made up names can be unacceptable depending on how made up there are.
names like k'k'aaakamelia or pudoopadeepledrup are just plain silly. i mean, really people.

Somewhere in the world, someone's rolling their eyes at the names Joy, Chris, Stephen and Jamie. I just know it.