Parents who curse their kids

 
Just don’t give your daughter a name a name she’s going to hate

COMEDIAN VIVEK MAHBUBANI told me he met a girl called Photosynthesis last week. She was tiny. “I wanted her to go out in the sun, to see if she would grow,” he said.

This reminded me of the time I met a girl called Nausea. The word actually has a pleasant feminine sound, as long as people around you don’t know what it means.

That’s probably the kind of thinking that produced Placenta Hightshoe and Hysteria Johnson, both of whom are also real girls.

Parents: if you are going to use a nice-sounding noun for your daughter’s name, CHECK THE DICTIONARY first.

Diarrhea sounds vaguely female, but is NOT a great name for your baby girl; trust me.

Another thing to remember: a pretty first name loses its magic if it’s matched with an unsuitable family name. Are you listening, parents of Luscious Bacon?
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I was thinking about the names parent curse their kids with when I received a news cutting from reader Sham Atputharaja about a new book of comical real names. Frou-Frou, Frisby and Brick by Russell Ash contains 3000 unusual names found in official documents.

Some names sound like nouns: Elle Fant, Sandy Beach and Rusty Pipes, for example.

Others sound like they are describing activities: Joy Rider and Rhoda Broom.

Others are simply bizarre: Booby Ogle, Wiggy Piggy, Womble Scoggins, Fizzy Allgood and Bonk Register, for example. Zaiboom McDoom sounds more like sound effect than a person.
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Then there are the unfortunate accidents. Parents were just not thinking straight when they named their kids Ben Dover, Anna Sassin, Pete Sake and Don Key.
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Some parents ought to be prosecuted. I just hope Etta Lott was not overweight, and Ima Gay was not heterosexual.

And I hope Mary Zarse never gets a job as a radio newscaster. “Now for the latest news, let’s go over live to Mary Zarse.”

In fact, all the Zarse family are at risk of being laughed at, whatever they do. Below is Ginger Zarse, an anaesteologist. Thank God she does not have red hair (anywhere, as far as I can tell).

And what about the poor boy whose name is Pedor File? I don’t know what job he ended up but I hope it doesn’t involve school visits.
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There are several cases in which the magic comes from the middle initial – such as Chris P Bacon and Pearl E Gates.

Ash said his favorites were those in which the family name was funny and a clever personal name was added to it. "There is one person called Jonah Whalebelly and another called Lettice Pray and there is of course Mary Christmas,” he told The Sun newspaper.
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Across the water, an American called Ethan Winer also collects names, and received this curious note: "My aunt's name is Debra May Page and she married Patrick Dye, so now she is called Debra May Dye.”

He also heard from a family called Teed, who named their sun Garren, and he got a sad note from a girl called Ash (short for Ashleigh) who married a man whose family name was Tray. I hope Ash Tray isn’t a smoker.
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On the subject of appropriate names, the author of this book of names died recently: I wonder if Mr Ash was cremated?
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Comments

[Angela]

I had a high school classmate, Margarita Gin. Her favorite time of the day is happy hours.

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A friend named her daughter Jenny Thalia. Can you guess her nickname?

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Nury, you are quick with words. What a cunning linguist you are!

[Paul]

The problem with common names is that the are, well, too common. We live in an age where self branding is all the rage. Look up a Mike Jones or Sally Wong on Facebook and you are likely to have hundreds of pages of entries to sort through.

People want their kids to have unique names and often resort to extremes to apply them. Comedian and magician Penn Jillette actually named his daughter Moxie Crimefighter Jillette.

Of course some names can be offensive to people, as seen in the case of these parents.

I have actually had discussions with my partner about naming our potential kids. With a last name like Fox, the potential is certainly there to have some fun. Of course I also expect my kids to support me in my old age, so I better be careful. ;-p

But I always like to refer back to the Bard, and his idea “What’s in a name?...”

[Lift Lurker]

Once upon a time in a Middle Kingdom far far away, my friends were thinking for name of their baby.

I do not remember the Chinese names but I remember the English meaning like: fragrant flower, audacious conqueror, serene elevator, sitting bull, etc.

Can we have samples from our Chinese readers? What does your names mean?

How about the South Asian names do they have meaning?

[marble]

In Chinese societies, there is a special category of female names that immediately tells you the fact that the girls bearing such names come from families craving for boys. Examples are 來弟, 帶弟 and 引弟 meaning "come a younger brother", "bring a younger brother" and "attract a younger brother". Sometimes 弟 will be replaced by the homonym 娣 (女 means female), trying to make the names more feminine. They are ugly and terrible names for girls, not to mention their obvious dislike for the fairer sex. I know someone called "Helen" who has a Chinese name "希麟" (sound more or less like "Helen"). It means "hope for a boy". 麟 as in 麒麟 (Kylin, a Chinese unicorn), meaning boy as well. Though this version is more elegant, it still carries the meaning that her parents wants a boy badly. It hurts her feeling and she hates the name very much.

[sheilajade]

uncle nury, if im not mistaken, i recall you've already written an article about names before. right? Ive enjoyed that one you know.

[Chamin]

My favorite was Miao Miao, who was a real student in a course that i tutored. Safter i got to know her name, she always looked like a cat to me :-)

[Chamin]

Foreign names can sound real funny if they have a meaning in your language. Lee Ang, the name of a famous filmmaker, means "wooden horns" in Sinhalese.

Pronunciations can add to the fun. Rick myers, when written in Japanese syllabary characters and pronounced, sounds "likku My arse". :-p

[Karuna aka Kaye Moreno]

Chamin...very true.. words in 1 language can have such a big different meaning in another.

Remember of a Tamil movie from my school days.

In Tamil language, the name of the movie meant "Drizzling had stopped".

While in neighboring province where they spoke Malayalam language, the same name meant "Diarrhea has stopped"

[Jason]

Everytime I meet a local that's chosen a stupid English name like Pizza, I say hi, I'm Congee. Meet my two friends, Neal and Bob.

[N Lau]

This article reminds me of my teaching days - I had come across students whose first names are Dragon, Major and Princess Diana! All are names given by their parents...

[Jason]

I taught English in Korea 7 years ago and I had at least 3 boys named Harry Potter.

[Ujjal Das]

How about the Brazilian player named Kaka. In french it means "s**t"/human soil. In Bangla, it has a more acceptable meaning, paternal uncle.

[Mike]

In the book Freakenomics there is chapter on weather people with unusal sounding names have a different level of sucess in life.

[TS]

The surname Dick is not that common.
In Great Britain there's 6,545 people carrying that name, making it the 1,513th most common name with the highest concentration in Northern Ireland.
In the US it ranks as the 1,388th most common surname.

With such small numbers one can only hope that common sense prevailed and that no one named their daughter Anita.

[Bill]

A gold medal-winning member of the US Olympic swimming team in the 2000 Olympics was named Misty Hyman.

I'm not sure why that fact sprung to mind while I was reading this article.

[Vernette]

There was this primary school classmate of mine, her Chinese name was (maybe is still) 曾美丽, sounded exactly like "really beautiful" both in Mandarin & Cantonese. Even at that tender age, I already seriously doubt that. Poor girl has to play catch up all her life.

[sibz]

i knew a guy from school. unfortunately his name was (and still is) wang kit. and we all know europeans dont pronounce "wang" the same way asians do...

also knew a smiley (guy) and a mango (girl, she named herself though).

then there's also eric shen....

[reet]

In Sikhism, name plays an important role. I have a cousin named "Chancel" which means "sharp minded" and he is truly a very bright boy and growing up according to his name. Parents need to take more precautions when choosing name for their babies as they will be using the name for their whole life.. :)

[Vernette]

I came across these names in this Region (HK/Macau):

Staple
Paper
Mask
Million
Spaghetti
Mainly
Aware
Piano
Handsome
Sinner (the surname is Sin!!)

just to name a few...

[Christyn Rana]

Hey everyone's heard of some odd names of someone or from somewhere. I don't have to go that far. Before my baptism, my parents named me Annu. My Indonesian friend said it meant butt. Scientifically it means perhaps an atom bomb? I'll take it as a complement. I prefer to reveal (only if asked) that ''annu'' means grace/mercy in nigeria or in hebrew. I had to find something pretty and pick it even though it was from some corner of the globe. During my secondary school days i was often called anus. Popular by choice.

[Christy]

There was someone named Shita in my high school :P I can't remember her surname but I *can* think up some funny ones to go with her first...

Someone has offered to give me an Arabic name and I intend to choose one with all the disgusting guttural sounds that hapless gwai los can't pronounce :0)

[Vin Tsen]

A particular celebrity who made a boo-boo with his daughters' names - Jamie Bloody Oliver.

[Poulla Dulay]

i saw someone on our yearbook whose name is Jade Chlorophyll Greenie. Her parents must have loved the color green so much!

[Coach Factory Store]

As so often, a journey into the unknown had revealed more about the traveller's home than about the destination.