mamabear1234, same thing happens to my husband with the spelling of his name. Some have even questioned if he spelled it correctly, as if he doesn’t know how to spell his own name
Re post #152: Rachael is a traditional alternate spelling of Rachel, not a “misspelling” at all. There are several Dickens characters with that spelling. In the late 19th/ early 20th century America, it was slightly more common than Rachel. Rachael is no more a misspelling than, say, Sara is a misspelling of Sarah or Isabel a misspelling of Isabelle.
So glad I didn’t name my D Sarah. She has so many friends named Sara, that they are known by their last names.
But then again, I also have a few friends named Sarah, and it suits them.
I like Hs name, which is as common as John used to be. ( which was my dads name) Both of the women on either side of our house have the feminized version of his name, and one of the men also has the same name. There also are ( or used to be) several other neighbors with same name, ( including one behind us)
As others have pointed out, “traditional” is sooo subjective. What is traditional in the south might e unusual in the northeast or the Pacific nortthwest. What was “traditional” 50 years ago may not be traditional today. What is “traditional” among those with Western European pedigrees might not be traditional at all among those of Eastern European decent and so on. Then add racial variations, class variations, and well, there IS no “traditional” name.
My name was popular in the late 50’s. I’ve never met a single person under 50 with my name so it’s obviously not still “traditional”. My youngest D has a name that was popular-top 10-in the early 1900’s. The youngest with her name I’ve met is 50. But it suits her.
She goes to school with kids from many countries and cultures and I love hearing all the names-Russian, Ethiopian, Haitian, “traditional” WASP, “traditional” African American and a few that were “made up”. It’s wonderful. No 10 kids with the same name. And there are so many different ones that the kids all appreciate each other’s uniqueness. Even the kid NAMED Unique.
Didn’t notice it mentioned so far - surely the worst name of all is Randy.
^^Why?
I just watched a video of Emily Blunt on Ellen, discussing her new baby. She said that she and her husband just coincidentally both loved all the “old lady names.” They ended up choosing Hazel, which I think is lovely. I’ve only known one Hazel, and she just so happened to be a strikingly pretty woman.
I’ve always liked my first name. It was a VERY popular name when I was young, but very rare nowadays.
One of my favorite things about being a historian is reading the names from the turn of the century.
My favorite name so far has been LuLu Bell. Which I’m sure sounds “made up” or “cutesy” and yet I have several patient records with that name so it must’ve been common at some point.
For the twelfth time, no one is dissing names that are traditional in other cultures. It’s the deliberate creative misspellings that are being dissed.
PG, you dissed Jeffery when that is a perfectly accepted spelling in England and Australia. For them, it’s traditional. Just because it’s different from YOUR every day life, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
@VeryHappy It’s a synonym for horny.
“Deliberately creative” like Seaaira? … (middle name Sky)
Take it up with mathmom. She commented on the misspelling. Was the family actually from England or Australia?
Which is why I always give a fake name at Starbucks; I just have to remember not to pay with my debit/credit card 
Well, if Randy is the “worst” name because it’s a synonym for horny, then Dick and Peter are the “worst” names also.
When I was in French class, we had to choose French names that were not the French equivalent of our own. I chose “Solange” because I thought it sounded so lovely. I don’t think it was a very common French name at the time, and for all I know, it may be an old lady name there.
But I would love to have had that name for real.
Here’s how to pronounce it:
http://www.forvo.com/word/solange/#de (push the play button under the map)
For the last 56 years I have HATED that my first name is always spelled incorrectly, that my middle name could also be a male name (Lynn) and that people slaughter the pronunciation of my last name. As a child, I would cringe and slide down in my desk on the first day of school when the teachers would mess up my name. Today I don’t even bother to correct people, though I give a silent cheer when it is correct.
I am sure this is the same in many other countries, but my heritage is Swedish and back in the olden days the oldest boy was given the father’s father’s name and the oldest girl the mother’s mother’s name and the middle names were often times those of your Godparents. If a child died, the next born of that sex was given the same name.
@Nrdsb4 , my kids have had many Asian friends who have traditional Asian names, but choose an Americanized name as their everyday use name, it is always interesting to see the names chosen, essentially it feels like many families, as expected, have no cultural context and choose names that would be rather unusual.
That is not at all being racist, just noticing that people who did not grow up WASPy, do not choose WASPy names when randomly going through a name book. They don’t have the old aunt Ethel or Bertha or whatever connotation in their heads, so they can see the name for it’s own sake. Many names chosen were quite ordinary, but others were very 1900s.
@Pizzagirl, as a number of people have pointed out, several of the names many people think are “deliberative creative misspellings” are actually completely traditional spellings that are simply not as common nowadays. Further, since spelling conventions are actually a relatively recent phenomenon (ever read any Shakespeare as it was originally published?) and spelling conventions for names are even more recent (ever tracked vital records for a single person even in the 20th century?), I’d argue that any appeal to traditions of how names are spelled is doomed to failure.
My old neighborhood had some hispanic immigrants who had changed their first names to sound more American. One picked a rather German sounding name - Henrik, I think - and he looked like he came straight from the Andes. Another man chose Milton. It was quite striking.
My Grandfather did the same thing back in the 1920’s, turning an Italian name, Alphonso, into Samson. He had been named after his mother Alphonsina - which is a pretty cool name if you ask me. Odd that he wasn’t named after his father since he was the only boy.