Baby Names that have been done to death

[NotUrsula]

And like William=Bill....seriously, wouldn't that be Billiam? or Will?? And how in the world does Richard=Dick????
I am sure we could go on and on with this!

When we told people we were naming our son Liam, a lot of people thought it was William and we just called him Liam. I told them if his name was William, we would call him that.

DS' name *is* William, and we just call him Liam -- when we're in Ireland. When in the US he answers to Will. (Don't blame me, my aunts started it. "William" is politically incorrect in Ireland.) DS is named for my Dad, who was also Liam in Ireland, but Bill in England.

As for the Bill, Bob, Dick, etc., those are all very common traditional English names, and those nicknames were developed to differentiate between people of the same name. If you notice, they all rhyme with the true shortening of the name. Now this part I'm guessing, but I think that was probably inspired by Cockney rhyming slang.

If you want an example of a peculiar nickname, look to Scotland. One of the most popular names in Scotland is Alasdair, and a very common nickname for it is Jock.

 

[cdrn1]

We have a Bocephus in our town...

 

[golfgal]

That reminds me of a friend of mine - she named her son Ryker -- all I can think of is the prison.

There is a girl at our kids' old school named Ryker.

Abby (Abigail) was NOT common when I named my daughter that.. Now its all over the place, along with Aidan.. I had NO idea it was so popular until after I named him... of course his name fits him perfectly but there are alot of them!

I was the only Helene in my school. I bet there would have been more named that if I was born in the 1900's and NO my name is NOT Helen, that was my grandmother

Our twins had about 6 friends named Abby.

Le-a
OKAY. How would you pronounce this child's name: "Le-a" ???
Leah?? NO
Lee - A?? NOPE
Lay - a?? NO
Lei?? Guess Again.

It's pronounced "Ledasha" Oh yes...you read it right.
This child attends a school in ______ Parish, LA. Her mother is irate because everyone is getting her name wrong. So, if you see something come across your desk like this please remember to pronounce it correctly.
When the mother was asked about the pronunciation of the name,
she said "the dash don't be silent."

I didn't get this the first time I read it--YIKES.

You know, if you give your kid a weird name or a weird spelling you give up ALL rights to be mad if someone misspells it or mispronounces it! .

In our old town there were about 15 Jaydens-several spellings and a mix of boys/girls born in the same year. They are all going to show up to kindergarten together and there will be 15 Jayden's in one class and 2 other kids with "weird" names like Alex or Amy .

One family in town has a girl named Michaela-nice enough name that they must have liked because 5 years later they named their son Michael

 

[Becky2005]

I agree with the poster who said you should name your kids what you want to call them. I am not a fan of the whole Michael=Mike, Rebecca=Becky, etc
thing. It drives me nuts. And my "favorite ones" Robert =Bobby. I can see Robby, but the name isn't Bobert! And how do you get Maggie out of Margaret? Well, I could go on and on, but I wont! LOL!!

Oh don't even get me started on that -- Not only do you get Maggie out of Margaret -- apparently you get Peggy too. In addition, John = Jack

That one I can NEVER EVER figure out but apparently John is a nickname for Jack... My dad's name is Jack (actually Jackie but that really messes wtih people because they consider it a girl's name -- I guess they never heard of Jackie Gleason?). My dad doesn't go by John at all (we DO have relatives with that name) but he would get calls from people calling him that. I always thought they wanted my cousin but they really did want my dad -- and these weren't relatives.

I thought my mother was a little insane when she told me -- OK...I just looked it up....apparently *I* was wrong it's Jack is a nickname for John. Apparently the people calling saw Jack thought it was a nickname for John and being proper, thought they would use his "real" name -- to which they would get me responding "I'm sorry you have the wrong number" until my mom would snatch the phone when I would look bewildered.

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

I have a nephew named Christopher. When he was in kindergarten the teacher asked SIL if they could shorten it to Chris, so it wouldn't so hard for him to write.

I read somewhere that is how Topher Grace (from That 70's Show) got to be called Topher. His name is ChrisTOPHER and he got sick of people calling him just "Chris". So he decided to go by Topher instead.

 

[monkey68]

I once had a student named Outlaw. Sadly, he was living up to his name, kid spent more time in juvie than in school.

Also had a student named Antonio. Nice enough name. And then you met his identical twin brother, Antony. Yep, both in the same class, both with mental disabilities, both had problems with speech. Never knew who was who, you would ask their name and they would say "Antojnskdjfndsk". They didn't know how to write, so asking them to spell their name was a lost cause. And these kids were identical to the core, even had identical scars on their faces.

I think if I have a daughter, I would name her Sophie or Sophia. If I have a son, I always liked the names Jacob or Nathanial. And I would probably call them by nicknames. They just add so much more flexibility to a name. My name is Susan, but when I was a cute little kid, I was Susie, when I was a bubbly middle school kid, I was Suze, when I was a cool high school/college student, I was Sue, and now that I sometimes need to be more professional, I go by Susan. Just sounds more professional than Susie, although that's what my family still calls me. Except my dad, I don't think he's ever called me by my name, it's always Monkey.

 

[lovesmurfs]

I have a nephew named Christopher. When he was in kindergarten the teacher asked SIL if they could shorten it to Chris, so it wouldn't so hard for him to write. She was livid! She said she named him Christopher and that was what he was to be called! He remained Christopher until he grew up and shortened it himself.

My DS decided in kindergarten that Timothy was too long to write, and shortened it to Tim. He's still Tim (at 14). I still call him Timothy, so he can use the full name when he's older. Only his baseball coaches call him Timmy, and only they can get away with it!

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

Every time I hear the name "Timmy" I have the urge to go "TIMMAY!" like that kid on South Park.

 

[Stacerita]

I read somewhere that is how Topher Grace (from That 70's Show) got to be called Topher. His name is ChrisTOPHER and he got sick of people calling him just "Chris". So he decided to go by Topher instead.

Many moons ago (or a few years) I dated a guy named Topher. When he was a little boy his family called him Chris. Then when he started school and saw he whole name written out, Christopher, he went home and asked his parents why did they put the topher behind his name. So he was called that ever since.


I work in health care and in the past work at facilities that delivered babies. The names people pick for their children are awful. I just cringed all the time. I don't mind boring traditional names, just don't spell them with the silent Z or X. And please don't name them any name that belongs to a pole dancer. And if I would name my dog that name, your baby probably should be named that either.

 

[PaulaSue]

I don't mind names that are "done to death" as much as I cringe at names that are "different" or just plain weird.

Ditto!

 

[DznyLvr2005]

When I went to school years ago there were 5 Jamie's in my class.... I guess Jamie was a popular name in the 70's...
Anyway, my daughter's name is Emma. I know, popular name, but I didn't know it until after I named her. I just liked the fact that it sounded old fashioned.

-Jamie

 

[pooh4evr]

As you can see by my signature we have an Emma-family name -but thanks to the show Friends when my Emma was a yr old there were suddenly lots of Emmas cropping up - she has 3 in her 2 nd grade class at school I know of (there are 8 2 nd grade classes) I would still choose the name though! Allison is Alli and it fits her perfectly and Kate is just Kate althougth there have been a few times as she creeps closer to those terrible 2s that I wish I had a longer anme to call her
Emma Cassidy- Allison Marie and Kate Mackenzie

 

[VolleyballQt07]

Clarabelle, you were right: Pepper is a girl, Fierce and Bosco are boys.

I know another family (although they've since moved away) with children named J'Ana, Dane, Saroya, and Stryder.

And another one that had kids with all nature names: Leaf, Winter, River and Autumn. (The girls were the seasons, the boys were the others.)


My boyfriends dads name is Dane and my boyfriend (Logan) middle name is Dane, but they are from New Zealand.

I am a Britni (and yes my mom does know how to spell. my sister is Brenna (gets called Breanna a lot) and my brother is Riley (was going to be whether he was girl or boy)

 

[georgina]

My DD9 has my great grandmother's name -- we wanted a biblical name. In 1999 it was rather a rarity....Hannah. Next year, it was one of the top names, and then comes along Hannah Montana...If I had to do it over again, I'd find a different one.

I have a Hannah. It's been popular for a long time, in 1995 when she was born it was #7 on the girls list. It was #2 in 1999, according to the ssa link someone posted somewhere on this thread. Despite its popularity, we haven't run into an overabundance of Hannahs in school. I like the older, traditional names. My other D is Margaret (Maggie). Both girl's names are family names.

My name is Irish with an unusual Irish spelling that I have to spell out all the time, but I like it and don't mind.

It's funny reading through this thread and seeing what names people think are different. Growing up surrounded by Irish, Sean was common and the only spelling I had seen. My S's middle name is Seamus (pronounced shamus, it's Irish for James). If I had had another boy, he would have been William after my father, but called Liam. Several people have said they don't like nicknames, but my Maggie has the option of using the more mature Margaret when she is older.

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm a Molly (not Mary, even though Molly is indeed a nickname for Mary). Getting a bit more popular, but not very popular in the overall American "universe".

Hubby is a Robert, which I guess was ranked 46 last year, but you never really notice Roberts, do you?

Ever since Benny and Joon I wanted an Aidan...alas I didn't meet hubby until everyone else who is an Aidan Quinn fan had kids and named them before me! But I notice that Aidan is actually ranked 54 last year, but I bet we would all think there are more Aidans than Roberts.

Though there's also Aiden, Adan, Aedan, and Aydan mentioned on the SS site, which bumps up the numbers.


I actually do wish I'd gone with my heart on that one, but I just couldn't. And hubby had a name that I despised, but the name IS our son. It's a burly, rowdy Scottish name, and although DS isn't Scottish (well, part of my paternal grandmother's family seems to have come from Scotland to Ireland then Canada then America, so there's a wee bit of Scottish in there) he sure is burly and rowdy! Would have been perfect, but I really did NOT like it. And there's another name that we liked but chickened out on, and too late (when DS was 2, I think) we realized that it rhymes with Eamon's name. Since my half brothers are Matthew and Michael, and my dad has THE hardest time remembering who we all are (even though I'm the oldest, I'm generally the last name he gets to, even after including his wife's name and their dog Shiloh), I didn't want to make it harder than needed, so now I'm not sure we'll use that other name.

Anyway, I know what it's like to LOVE a name and give it up b/c everyone else loves it too. So although there are bunches of same-names, I figure that each parent just loved the name and didn't want to lose it but then hear it ALL the time.

At least you spelled Conor correctly! My friend's husband is from Ireland (and a Conor as well) and it drives him crazy when Americans spell it with two Ns.

And yet they want two Ns for Eamonn! (something I gave in to hubby on, so we have an Eamon)

But I have to say that Molly is up there with the most popular names to name your girl dog

It always has been. My biggest "enemy" in school (from 1st to 12th) had a HORSE named Mollie. Ugh. AND she was a Leslie, which is a BOY's name (like Stacey, Tracey, Robin, and countless other names girls have taken over grr).

A friend's daughter has a grandmother whose dog is Molly, a stuffed dog the grandma gave her is Molly, and there's some other animal Molly in there. Drives me crazy, but hey, it's a good name!

When we named our daughter, my DH wanted Madison. It turns out it was the most popular name. We decided not to go with that. We ended up with Kady. I love this name. It cant be shortened, and no nick-name. She loves it when people ask her if her full name is Katherine, and she says, no Its Kady.

You can too shorten it! If you can't, explain why my stepmom calls my half-sister Cade! She's Cady (her mom was in nursing school prereq classes, taking Women's History, and learned of Elizabeth Cady when she found out she was pg again...they were going to go with Cady Elizabeth but somewhere in the depths of dad's name he remembered I had chosen Elizabeth as my middle, and decided to not do that...I wouldn't have minded, though, it would have been fun! She's 25 years younger than me, so NOT a big deal).

You could also go with Dee, or Kay.

Actually I was roommates with a KD (before I had heard of KD Lang). And this was in 90/91 when I was a senior in college and she was a year or so younger than me. So she could shorten to just K!

They would immediately start singing "Cecilia". The would always start out strong but then realize the part about the main character getting up out of bed to wash his face having some other guy take his place wasn't the best thing to sing to a 3-year old.

Oh gracious.

Glad I have only two songs, and both of them are OK. Good Golly eh you know the rest, and the Beatles song about somebody and Molly in the marketplace.

LOL - I had a name all picked out, probably thought it up in HS. However, when dd was born 12 years ago, surprise, surprise, Emily Anne was no longer a unique name! So, no Emily for me.

I hope when Eamon is 12 I can be so chipper about "losing" Aiden/Aidan/Aedan as you are about Emily! I've lost Emily too...thought it would be sweet to be Molly-mom-of-Emily, but that's just NOT going to happen...

I don't know -- I hear this argument all the time but my name is truly Becky!

I guess because I'm an adult with a "nickname as a real name" I just don't get the problem with it. Maybe I'm missing something, that I should have problems with it? Who knows maybe other people have the problem with it & I just am not clued in that it was such a big issue.

I don't get it either. Then again, few people seem to realize that Molly is a nickname. Well, that's not really true. I went to school with tons of Irish Catholics, and they ALL knew that Molly is "short" for Mary.

My mom's family was very big on naming what you intend to call the kiddo. So I'm Molly, mom was Judy (not Judith!). They kind of lost it when it came to my uncle, though! Even my stepmom felt that way, but as the kids got older she kind of lost the fight, especially after Cady came along 10 years after Michael (not Mike!) and 12 years after Matthew (not Matt) b/c she started with the Cade stuff.

Just a note as someone from a family of Irish speakers. Irish-speaking people tend to get a bit bent out of shape about the spelling of Irish names because Irish is one of those languages where changing the spelling usually changes the meaning of the word, most often messing up the gender it takes. For instance, I have a tendency to cringe when I see Aidan spelled with the ending "en" because in Irish that forces it to become a feminine-gender word. The proper ending spelling for Irish male names that end that way is always going to be "an", because that's masculine in Irish. BTW, Irish names that end in "a" are male, too. Popular examples: Brian, Cieran, Declan, and Enda -- all male.

So what did hubby do when he nixed the ending N for Eamonn?

When I grew up, Mrs. Jordan lived next door. To me, that is a surname.

To me it's a country and a river.

I know someone whose kids are Hannah, Austin, and Katie. With two traditional names, I really wonder where Austin came from. Hmmmmmm...I'd guess family somewhere along the way.

*cough* Days of our Lives *cough*

I keep reading how common Aiden is, but I don't know a single Aiden!

That spelling was ranked 27 last year. Wow. Combined with Aidan being 54 and a couple other spellings, and that is a lot of boys!

And my "favorite ones" Robert =Bobby. I can see Robby, but the name isn't Bobert! And how do you get Maggie out of Margaret? Well, I could go on and on, but I wont! LOL!

My sons are Ryan and Liam. Short, simple and Irish. I like names that aren't shortened so I went short to begin with. When we chose Liam, we didnt see it often, but since then we have run into it a few times and love to see other little boys sharing the name!

oh, and the Sean=Shawn thing always threw me for a loop too!

How about Molly and Mary?

Being into Irish names it surprises me that Sean throws you!

My Celtic Names for Children book actually mentions that Liam is short for Uilliam....

And if I would name my dog that name, your baby probably should be named that either.

The problem is that people name their animals ALL sorts of perfectly good people names!

 

[Stacerita]

It always has been. My biggest "enemy" in school (from 1st to 12th) had a HORSE named Mollie. Ugh. AND she was a Leslie, which is a BOY's name (like Stacey, Tracey, Robin, and countless other names girls have taken over grr).




The problem is that people name their animals ALL sorts of perfectly good people names!

Don't blame us with boy names being taken over by girls. Blame our parents. I know my name is a boy's name. Its a greek boy's name to be exact. I'm fine with it.

And I'm not talking about people naming their dog Sam and some people naming their kid Sam. I was talking about people who have named their babies "Patches" "Rex" and "Lassie". Yes, I have actually helped complete birth certificates with those being the legal names. Makes you wonder.

 

[bumbershoot]

My S's middle name is Seamus (pronounced shamus, it's Irish for James).

My cousin Sally has a Seamus.

 

[Mommy2cody]

The one thing I dislike and it's just me, so no offense meant to anyone, is cutesy boy names that are hard to pull off as full grown men. For example, Cody Lindley, of Hannah Montana. Cody was cute as can be at 12, but when he's 30, Cody might come off as a tad immature.

People need to think ahead when naming their children knowing that they won't always be children.

My sons name is Cody and I was worried about this very thing. But he has a very strong mans first name as a last name and I didn't want to make him sound to formal. It was not the original name I had picked out for him. I wanted to name him Bradley but I could not come up with a good middle name. I saw the name Cody and just could not get the name out of my head. It totally fits him and I could NEVER picture him as a Bradley. I think it depends on the other names it is paired with. His middle name is Aaron.

 

[bumbershoot]

Don't blame us with boy names being taken over by girls. Blame our parents. I know my name is a boy's name. Its a greek boy's name to be exact. I'm fine with it.

And I'm not talking about people naming their dog Sam and some people naming their kid Sam. I was talking about people who have named their babies "Patches" "Rex" and "Lassie". Yes, I have actually helped complete birth certificates with those being the legal names. Makes you wonder.

But it's more fun to blame the girl that was your pseudo mortal enemy for all those years. Her mom was perfectly nice.

(this is also personal, as my mom named my brother Robin, and by high school he had had it up to here with all the girls with the name and the kids not having any idea it was a boy's name (obviously no one remembered Robin Hood?), and in college he changed his name legally.)

Patches? OK, well, that's another Days link, sort of. Rex = King and there's Rex Harrison. But Lassie, that's just beyond me.

 

[luvflorida]

I read somewhere that is how Topher Grace (from That 70's Show) got to be called Topher. His name is ChrisTOPHER and he got sick of people calling him just "Chris". So he decided to go by Topher instead.

My son's name is Christopher. When his younger sisters were toddlers they couldn't say his name correctly. They called him "Kissy-fur", "Cro-Cro", and "Kiss-for". That's as close as they could get to "Christopher". Fortunately, none of those names stuck.

My oldest daughter is Megan, pronounced MAYgan.

My youngest daughter has a name that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. Her name is Mallory, a name that I absolutely love. Of course, I never looked up the meaning of the name until AFTER we had named her. Mallory means unlucky or unfortunate. The only other meaning I've come across (after much searching) is army counselor. However, I still love the name, and no, she is not an unlucky child!

Megan and her husband had their first baby a few months ago, and they named him Carter. They both love the name, but my daughter said she's glad we don't still live in New England. We went home to Maine for a visit, and there were a lot of people calling him "Cahtah". Gotta love the New England accent!

Forgot to say: Our daughter, Mallory, has never met another Mallory, in or out of school.