<p>Yup, D1 has a cheerleader name, not uncommon today. She jokingly calls it a stripper name. Hasn’t stopped her. I asked if she wanted to modify it for resumes. Eg, a Clotilde could go by Chloe. (Nothing meant to be deceptive, just much like Willard could go by Will.) She said nope. </p>
<p>I work in a school and often come across different names. What always amazes me is when the parents get upset that people mispronounce their kids’ names or misspell them. When you spell Quinten as Quenthan and Sidney as Sidnethy, people are going to struggle. Someone here mentioned the name McKenna as a girl’s name. I know one and the mom thought it was a biblical name. I’m not sure if she thought it was Old or New Testament.</p>
<p>There are ethnic names… and then there are names that, frankly, are cruel:</p>
<p>1) La-a (la-dash-a)
2) Satan (even worse when the parent spells it wrong… Satin)
3) Superman (that kid is going to be in a lot of fights)
4) Sh1thead (pronounced “shi-thay-id”)</p>
<p>Etc.</p>
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<p>This is pretty much just an urban myth: <a href=“Is This Child's Name for Real? | Snopes.com”>http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/le-a.asp</a></p>
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<p>Where did you get this one from? </p>
<p>In my southern town there were sisters named Holmes and Haywood. But they were from up north, go figure. LOL. Their younger sister was named Sue!</p>
<p>I never understood why parents would use creative spelling for fairly common names…Kathrhyne, Konner, Allyceia, Leighahn instead of Katherine, Connor, Alissa or Leeann. Yes, over the years I have known kids with those spellings…doomed their children to a lifetime of lost reservations, mix-ups and repeating things to everyone.
We tried for names that would look good on corporate nameplates but with shorter names or initials that fit well with rock stars or writers. And once you have your first, you have to blend the others so they sound like a family (just don’t give them all names with the same first letter!)</p>
<p>VaBluebird, I knew triplets with names like (but changed because how many triplets were there in the day?) Charity, Hope and Holly. Holly pretty much knew she was the surprise…</p>
<p>It’s interesting to me what makes a name come back with a grand resurgence. Evelyn and Hazel are the new Jessica and Amanda. Why Mabel and not Mildred or Delores? I chose names for my kids that would make it unlikely they would have another child with the same name in their grade. I didn’t want them to have to be Emily J. or Emily P. or Emily S. I suppose my kids and their generation will bring back Susan and Nancy and Gary and Glenn. </p>
<p>When I was young there were a lot of Debbies and Lauries, Michaels and Jims. We named our kids after family members.</p>
<p>In baby-naming circles, there’s a hundred-year rule which says that over 4 generations a name goes from fresh to overused to old-fashioned to extinct, and then to fresh again. </p>
<p>That’s one reason we chose a classic name, since they are somewhat immune from the cycle. One description of D’s name was “never trendy, never dated” which was exactly what we were going for. </p>
<p>On DH’s side, we’ve got a name that goes back at least 100 (that I can confirm), back 4 gens, a daughter in each gen with it. I did give it to D1 as her middle name. It’s still clunky, but she likes it. Helps that a guy in her circle has the male version for his middle name.</p>
<p>After reading some of the names earlier in this thread, the names of Ricky Bobby’s kids don’t sound too bad! (Walker and Texas Ranger)</p>
<p>My sense is that this phenomenon has as much to do with the types of parents who would give their kids these names as it does with the names themselves, and with the resources available to such families. As an example, one of my kids is adopted. She has two birth sisters named Crystal and Amber*. Stripper names in my book, and not something any middle or upper middle class parent would ever have named their kids at the time. The kids are nice, but they both ended up teen moms with pictures of bongs on their FB pages.</p>
<p>Their sister (my daughter), Elizabeth*, has LDs and a need for speed. I imagine she’s very similar to her sisters in personality, yet so far her outcome has been very different. While Crystal and Amber’s poor single parent mom was in and out of jail on substance abuse charges Elizabeth has been in two family home and attending a private school where she had tutoring and lots of competitive sports to give her the adrenaline rush she needs. Instead of peers indulging in drugs and s3x she had high-achieving classmates and teammates. She’s on a path to college.</p>
<p>In other words, is this a case of correlation, not causation?</p>
<p>*not their real names, but similar in tone.</p>
<p>Sue, one theory of the hundred year rule is that it has to do with SES and aspiration. The wealthy want original names for their children. Those children grow up and their middle class peers admire the name and give it to their kids. Once a name seeps into the middle class, the wealthy no longer want it. In the next generation, it moves further down the ladder to the poor, and the middle class no longer wants it. To the next generation, it’s associated with the poor and no one wants it. It lies fallow for a generation, and then it seems new and fresh again to the wealthy.</p>
<p>This female family name of ours- MIL hated it because of the nickname. She later changed to her middle name. We also gave it to the dog. MIL was happy about that. She had a sense of humor.
And our girls also came with their first names.</p>
<p>If people don’t like their first names, I don’t see why they don’t adapt them. So if they don’t make a change to the most unusual ones, maybe that says something about them, too? I don’t mean to be controversial. </p>
<p>My kiddos are all named after family members that I adored! They have very formal formal first and middle names. names that look great hanging on a shingle!</p>
<p>But their “nicknames” are easy to say and spell. All 1 syllable so I could say all 5 so quick they would all come running!</p>
<p>So for example:</p>
<p>Kathryn nickname Kate</p>
<p>Theodore nickname Ted</p>
<p>Thomas nickname Tom</p>
<p>and so on… can say them all in 1 breath and they could hear me from a football field away!</p>
<p>Each of their first and middle names were explained to them at an early age and they each knew they had big shoes to fill. </p>
<p>No misspellings by teachers, no difficult pronounciations, no teasing. Kiddos get teased about enough stuff why provide more to tease about? They each have said now that they are adults that they liked their names as children and even more so as adults.</p>
<p>Always said give your kiddo a hero’s name and that is what you will end up with!!!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>LasMa
I think the flow of names is going the other way, with poor people making up names and having them creep upward…although they’re not seeming to get through the middle class all that well.</p>
<p>I like the names for kids that allow them to have two first names: James Robert, James Joseph, Robert Joseph. Then you can be Jim-bob, Jimmy-joe, or Bobby Joe, or just J.R., J.J., or R.J.</p>
<p>We wanted to pick names of distinguished historical figures for our kids. We really loved the name “Hannibal”, but it’s been ruined. </p>
<p>DDs name is from the Old Testament her middle is a very old name, think queens and saints. She has defintely stuck out like a sore thumb most of her life. She was fine in pre-K, their were Kate’s, Liam’s, Ians, Andrews, Nina’s, Grace, Julia, Henry’s etc… She has been teased and asked where she got her name from by her classmates. I never wanted either of my children to be discrimated against because of their names. </p>
<p>If you haven’t seen the “Freakonomics” book by Levitt & Dubner, it has a section on popularity of names over the decades, unusual spellings, and a case study about two brothers named Winner and Loser.</p>