Anyone who has given their child an unusual name ...

[OK!]

In my preK/class, I have....

Storm(sister Rain and brother Skye)

Lennox

Aya

Christani(pronounced Kris-tuh-nee)

Sergio

Other classes have...

Eli

Josine

Delphine

Asher

Giacamo(Pronouced Jock-uh-mo)

and I babysit for an Orion

I like all of them.

If I had another boy, I would name him Josiah.
For girl, Mara.

Marsha

Ha, I went to school with an Orion. That was back in the early '80s. I think this Orion is the first kid I've heard of with that name since!

 

[Mrs.Toad]

I have an old fashioned virtue name--and not one of the prettier ones like Grace. It's a good name, but I sound like I should be a buttoned down stern-faced teacher. (I used to be a fun teacher!)

This reminds me the girlfriend of a guy I used to work with. When he told us her name, Patience, my first thought was "oh, why would someone give their child such an old-fashioned, stuffy name?" (we were of the Jennifer, Kathy and Heather generation) But after meeting her, she was so fun and bubbly and pretty, I soon started to think of it as a beautiful name!

 

[fergibabies]

I met a father at the pedi office once his son's name was Ian Orion . I commented that it was an interesting name. He went on to tell me that his son was name after Ian Stuart (Stewart?) the late lead singer of the skinhead band swrew driver and Orion stood for Our Race Is Our Nation.....

Mmmmmmmkay. Boy was I uncomfortable after that. To make it worse he commented on the beauty of my "Aryan" blonde blue eyed twins. ** twitch twitch***

 

[golfgal]

Here are some of the names from the hospital website in our old town:

Jamarcus (born to Jennifer and Sam)
Landryk (born to Darci and Dustin)
Jazlyn
Micah-a girl
Everra
Wyatt Allen
Wyatt Alan-not that these are unusual just odd that two families had these boys born a day apart--school is going to be confusing for these two

Harlow Madysin
Kaysie
Skyla
Paislee
Reylan (boy)
Felix Knox (must like scrabble)
Meekah (girl)
Padgett (girl)
Landrey (girl)
Soren
Uchenna (boy-no idea how to say this-mom is Lillian, dad is Sam)
There are 4 Maliyah's so far since September
Shylin
Trenen
Dejara (girl to Jennifer and Jason--not making that one up)
Akria
Kessler
Cayson
Braxton (reminds her of her labor I guess)
Karson
Poppy (no she won't ever get teased over that one-thanks Laura and John)
2 Kingston's--I bet they thought there wouldn't be another Kingston in their class

There is a fairly large Somalian population there so I didn't post any of those names since I don't know if they are unusual or not.

My spell check had a hayday with this list

 

[torinsmom]

Ha, I went to school with an Orion. That was back in the early '80s. I think this Orion is the first kid I've heard of with that name since!

This Orion is named after the constellation. His name fits him and having a uniquely named child of my own (Torin), I really love his name. People always think I am saying "Ryan" when I say his name though.

Marsha

 

[FayeW]

LOL, I know Koi is a love or hate it name...but it is what it is and we personally love it. If she decides she doesn't like it later she is more than welcome to go by Isabella. Everyone we know likes it, but then in our family we tend to have unusual names quite a bit..I have aunts/cousins named Louisiana, Ila, Iva, Fayone, Charm..just to name a few lol. Most are family names that date WAAYYY back...Charm came from a great uncle that was killed in the Civil War. And god love her my cousin Vania moved to England where she is happily wed to a welshman who decided to name their twin dds Countess and Duchess...we call them Tessa and Chessa though. Koi may be a bit more unusual than most, and there may very well be some mean people who do make fun of her but you know, we don't let those people dictate how we name our girls.

I understand you position. I just wanted to make sure you had thought about the possibilities of vulgar teenage boys making vulgar comments to a young lady in the school halls. Not that they don't do it anyway, I am sure, but her name will make her an easier target than most. The jokes almost write themselves. Obviously I can't give a more graphic example without getting points. Hope I didn't offend.

 

[RainbowBrite]

Here are some of the names from the hospital website in our old town:

Jamarcus (born to Jennifer and Sam)
Landryk (born to Darci and Dustin)
Jazlyn
Micah-a girl
Everra
Wyatt Allen
Wyatt Alan-not that these are unusual just odd that two families had these boys born a day apart--school is going to be confusing for these two

Harlow Madysin
Kaysie
Skyla
Paislee
Reylan (boy)
Felix Knox (must like scrabble)
Meekah (girl)
Padgett (girl)
Landrey (girl)
Soren
Uchenna (boy-no idea how to say this-mom is Lillian, dad is Sam)
There are 4 Maliyah's so far since September
Shylin
Trenen
Dejara (girl to Jennifer and Jason--not making that one up)
Akria
Kessler
Cayson
Braxton (reminds her of her labor I guess)
Karson
Poppy (no she won't ever get teased over that one-thanks Laura and John)
2 Kingston's--I bet they thought there wouldn't be another Kingston in their class

There is a fairly large Somalian population there so I didn't post any of those names since I don't know if they are unusual or not.

My spell check had a hayday with this list

I went to school with a Uchenna. I met a Soren this summer. I really like that name.

 

[ZPT1022]

I went to school with a Uchenna. I met a Soren this summer. I really like that name.

I'm pregnant and considering the name Soren- it's a Danish name so I thought it would be nice to honor my heritage

 

[disfan07]

I dont necessarily mind the uncommon names as much as the uncommon spellings...especially when the parents of those kids get into such a fit if we misspell it by accident.

We had one girl in my class named Makenzie and her mom didnt regret the spelling of the name as much as the length of her name...she was having a lot of trouble learning how to spell it

At the preschool I worked at we had 9 allisons (spelt 4 different ways), 6 rebeccas (spelt 3 different ways), 3 joscelyns (spelt 3 different ways) and so on.
There were like 5 parents who, if we aciidently spelt their kids name wrong on anything (artwork, papers, etc) they would yell at us for not spelling it correctly. It was crazy. My nanme is not realy unusual, but there are many different ways to spell it and if my parents or I had a fit everytime someone mispelled it, we would still be yelling at people..l

For the parents who dont like their child to have a nickname....what if your child likes it? Will you tell people not to call them that because you dont like it? (i'm talking starting at like 3 years old or so)

 

[Aisling]

Aisling, I have always pronounced your name A-sling in my head. Guess I'm not alone. Good to know I've been wrong

That's one of the nicer mispronunciations of my name. I've been called Jackassling, but without the "jack', if you get my meaning!

 

[erincon23]

My name is more common now, but when I was born, 50 years ago, I was the only one named Erin around. In 5th grade, my teachers selected me to write to NASA and ask for a moon rock for our school's new science garden -- teh reply came back to "Mr. Aaron .." I've noticed that there are several Erins on the Dis. (My grandfather, who selected the name Erin, called me Mary almost all the time...)

Our kids both have normal names, and we picked the full name knowing that we'd like the nicknames or the full name, whichever they picked -- and they both like the nickname. My younger wants to be named something else -- he's 14 now and getting settled into his name, but we went through several requests for a name change, or to use initials.

When I was pregnant with my 1st, my SIL was pregnant with her 2nd, and when I was pregnant with my 2nd, she was pregnant with her third. We both liked the same girls' name when I was having my first, so she (very nicely) named her girl a different name in case i had a girl and wanted to give her that name, but I had a boy. The 2nd time, she decided to go ahead and take the name -- she spelled it Caroline and I would have spelled it Carolynne -- but I had a boy. If she had a boy, she was going to name him Andrew and call him Drew... but I had the boy, named him Andrew and we call him Andy.

My family is 1/2 Irish -- one brother has a Colin and Connor (and they should have named their girl Colleen, don't you think, but they didn't), another brother has a Connell, and a third brother just had a boy named Liam. I think we're really heavy into the Irish names here. I love them, but DH's family is very German (ha, and his name is Kevin, everyone thinks he's Irish) and they wouldn't have gone for it.

- Erin

 

[Stumpy]

I've seen quite a few unique names at the hospital where I work, but the one that still has me in disbelief is Nimrod. The worst thing is that the parents were not foreign, so why would they ever do this to their child???

 

[bballmom56]

Just out of curiosity, when you go a restaurant or anywhere that asks you for your name, do you cringe and wish you didn't have to cause then you'd have to spell it or explain it, etc?

Nope. I either give them my DH's name or I make up an easy one like "Debbie".

 

[Narnian_Princess]

I tend to like slightly unusual names. My name is kind of common (it's Rachel), but I only ever met one other person with my name until I came to college. Now, there are four people with my name, different spellings, though, on this tiny campus. I do like it, though, but I LOVE my middle name so much: Ariel (no, I was not named after the Little Mermaid, and it's pronounced Arr-ee-ell, not Air-ee-ull).

I have some slightly unusual names picked out if I ever have kids, but my best guy friend is a big proponent of swapping gender names. He wants to name a boy Kimberly. Not Kim, Kimberly. I give him the skeptical look and the "he's going to get his butt kicked on the playground" talk whenever the subject comes up, but then I have to concede because of my unusual girls' name.

 

[puffkin]

My husband's family is Greek(*he's 1st generation American) so we went with a very common Greek name for my daughter, Eleni. In Greek it's pronounced Eh-LEN-ee. Unfortunately, being from the Deep South and having a Deep South Alabama accent, when I say it the name comes out ee-LAY-ee. Kinda drives her crazy. Eleni loves her "different" name. We have known a few people with the same name, all of them Greek. It's about as common as Kaitlyn or Ashley in Greek communities.

I love the name Eleni! My old boss is named Eleni, and her family is greek (father was first generation American).

 

[autumnpalm]

I don't have kids yet, but when I do, I have pretty traditional names in mind.

For a boy:

Jacob
Oliver
Micah
Liam


For a girl:

Caris/Charys (meaning peace)
Olivia
Lily

 

[The Orchid]

I'm pregnant and considering the name Soren- it's a Danish name so I thought it would be nice to honor my heritage

I love that name! And Denmark is an awesome country.

 

[carj]

Ugh, I HEAR you!! Just out of curiosity, when you go a restaurant or anywhere that asks you for your name, do you cringe and wish you didn't have to cause then you'd have to spell it or explain it, etc? I do. I hate that part. Thank goodness I have a very common last name.

Sometimes I wish I had everything I need to say about my name either on a handy business card or tatooed on my forehead.

If I am somewhere and it doesn't really matter what name I give them, such as a restaurant, I use an alias! Actually, I just give them my daughter's name which requires no explanation or clever story.

My maiden name is not unusual but is associated with a famous family. (No relation) So... as I kid, I got to explain at least one name or another!

My married name is similar to a name that was a famous crime family. So...still having to explain the name sometimes.

Oh well, at least I am good at it now.

 

[Buckalew11]

Love the name Hadley. Love it very much!!

I have a client whose maiden name was Hadley and she used it for one of her 4 sons. He, in turn, used it for a daughter. Like it better for a girl, just as I did Hunter. Would not of named my son Hunter.

 

[Inigo]

Nope. I either give them my DH's name or I make up an easy one like "Debbie".

I'm usually Esmeralda at these restaurants just to see the look on the person's face. I have a great poker face, so they never know if I'm kidding or not. At my favorite sandwich deli, they know my real name, but the manager always calls me Esme in fun. (He was behind me in line at Panera's one time and heard the Esmeralda.)