Just when you thought names can't get any stranger

[EMom]

Once again, I submit one of my personal favorites, a young lady we met while she was working at Astroworld.........Washateria.

 

[Geoff_M]

My uncle worked with a guy who named his daughter something I can't post on the DIS. I'm sure it will be blocked. It was pronounced Shuh-thaid. It was spelled ****head!!!

A guy I knew once delivered a fundraiser coupon book to someone with that as a last name. The lady said it was pronounced "Shy-theed". Part of me wonders if surnames like this are the result of some sort of "joke" played by registry workers at Ellis Island!

 

[Mandyjg20]

My friend who worked at a bank, saw the name La-sea
pronounced la dash se a

 

[Plannin'Shannon]

The lemonjello and orangejello twins will be showing up soon...

 

[SDFgirl]

The lemonjello and orangejello twins will be showing up soon...

Yes, the gang's all here - Female, La-a, Nosmo King, and Placenta. Lemonjello and Orangejello are bound to show up any minute!!

 

[Costumesaremylife]

There are quite a few kids named Kal-El (lastname) One I know of, but never met in College. He was born even before Nicolas Cage's kid with the same name. It's Superman's name on Krypton.


Census records in my town show a girl named Ultra Violet .

 

[hellofolks]

Actor Jason Lee named his son Pilot Inspecktor

 

[BNM]

I have heard of several people named Melena. To me this is a medical term, and its meaning isn't pretty.

 

[EMom]

A guy I knew once delivered a fundraiser coupon book to someone with that as a last name. The lady said it was pronounced "Shy-theed". Part of me wonders if surnames like this are the result of some sort of "joke" played by registry workers at Ellis Island!

I've told this story before and someone always replies that Snopes says it isn't true, as if Snopes is the ultimate authority on EVERYTHING and knows the name of each and every person on Earth. The story:

A minister I know taught high school after he finished seminary, but before landing a full time job as a minister. (I think I can trust a minister to tell the truth.) He got the class roster and there was S***head. He knew it wasn't a typo, but figured perhaps it was someone's idea of a joke. At any rate, he was NOT going to call out "S***head" when he called roll. So he did what I did when he called roll that first day. He asked each kid to pronounce their name and let him know if they used a nickname instead.

When he got to S***head, he said the last name and she told him her name was Shy-THEED. He repeated, "Shy-THEED?" and then she got irritated with him, as if any fool ought to know that S***head is pronounced Shy-THEED. So it was not a typo or a prank. That was indeed her name, paired with a very normal last name.

One of my best friends since kindergarten was an elementary teacher and had a favorite student named Lotrimin....like Gyne-lotrimin for yeast infections. Minus the Gyne. She hated that this adorable kid was stuck with that name. She had worse names than that over the years.

Teachers and medical personnel are on the front lines of discovering weird names. Occupational hazard. Had I not met Washateria and seen her nametag myself, maybe I'd have a hard time believing that one.

 

[*JoGo*]

Am I the only one that didn't realize until the last Paragraph that bath salts were not actually bath salts? Once I realized something bad was going to happen, I thought she was going to abuse them because they dumped out all her Calgon!


And remember the episode of Blossom where Joey found out it said Baby Boy on his birth certificate?

 

[Geoff_M]

I've told this story before and someone always replies that Snopes says it isn't true, as if Snopes is the ultimate authority on EVERYTHING and knows the name of each and every person on Earth.

It's possible that my friend, he was also one of my high school teachers, was lying. However, he did tell it in the first person. I became a serious student of urban legends in college after taking a Folklore class. I became an avid reader of the most noted Folklore professors that specialized in urban legends: Jan Harold Brunvand. I submitted material to him and even got a citation in his book The Baby Train. The one thing that Brunvand teaches is that when some retells something that supposedly happened to a friend-of-a-friend (AKA a "FOAF") , the odds of it being true almost are zero. When someone is willing to tell a story in the first person, the odds of it being true are greater.

Additionally, sometimes something that is originally written off as being an urban legend turns out to be found to be true. Brunvand had his happen with the story that was passed around about a woman that stopped in a public restroom before an OB/Gyn appointment and found there was no toilet paper in the stall. She resorted to using a Kleenex out of her purse to "clean up" and proceeded to her appointment. As the doctor later began his examination, he laughed and said "Mrs. Smith, so you're giving out Green Stamps nowadays!" and held up an S&H Green Stamp (if you're over 45, you probably remember these) he had found in her private region. Brunvand's initial assessment was that it was a false urban legend, but a few years later he got a letter from a woman claiming she was flabbergasted to read about her story! Brunvand then asked for, and got, a corroborating letter from the doctor in the story that in fact had happened.

So again, my friend may have been lying to me, but I had no reason to question him.

 

[EMom]

I have one more from a fellow teacher, but it happened when she worked for some social service agency. She told me the story, so first person it is. (or was)

They had a client whose last name was Flowers. She had several daughters, all with names like Rose, Violet, Iris, etc. She got pregnant again, but finally had a boy. My friend had been wondering the whole time WHAT she might name a boy. I mean, another girl was easy enough, but a boy? So she came in after the birth and my friend asked what she had named the baby. It was Art. My friend figured it was Arthur. Or maybe just Art. Nope, Artificial. Artificial Flowers. She said she would not have believed it had she not seen the birth certificate herself. But it was right there, in black and white.

I guess it stuck with the naming theme, but still....

He'd be over 18 now, but I can't find him in Texas. Too many searches for actual artificial flowers come up.

 

[Geoff_M]

I had a good friend in high school that played club hockey for a high school in Indianapolis (Warren Central, IIRC). One of his teammates, who I personally met, was name Memo Morning. He had several sisters that were all named after meteorological conditions. Two that I remember were "Rainy" and "Misty".

My best friend, and my best man, had a paper route near our home and had a customer that named her kid "KC" because she loved KC and the Sunshine Band.

 

[princessmom29]

one of my favorite students was named Sinthya. I have also had Pashun (pronounced passion), Precious, Diamond, Unique, and my all time favorite, The Parish as first names for students.

 

[EMom]

There are so many Uniques out there that it is useless to name a baby Unique. Maybe they need to switch to Onlyoneofakind-fornow.

 

[North of Mouse]

We know two people here (one from here, the other Jamaica) He's Alpha and she's Omega. A friend of mine was named Dusk and another sister Dawn and another one similarly named(can't remember). There's a park in Houston, TX called Govenor Hogg State Park - 26 acres - that was donated by the last decendant of the home - her name was Ima Hogg. You can Google that one!!

 

[Costumesaremylife]

My Aunt found out, when she was getting a divorce (age 40 something) that her legal first name was Leora. She had to go back and write her name AKA Leora (lastname) on all her papers.

My Grandmother was really good at naming the girls one thing and calling them something else. Six of my eight aunts are called things that aren't their real first names.

 

[nicolita3]

There actually is an employee where I work and her name is Baby Girl. It is so weird to hear people call her name. My dogs name is Baby and I keep thinking they are calling my dog LOL

 

[EMom]

We know two people here (one from here, the other Jamaica) He's Alpha and she's Omega. A friend of mine was named Dusk and another sister Dawn and another one similarly named(can't remember). There's a park in Houston, TX called Govenor Hogg State Park - 26 acres - that was donated by the last decendant of the home - her name was Ima Hogg. You can Google that one!!

Although I may not be exactly right, the Ima Hogg story goes something like this:

Her parents chose her name because a relative who was a poet had a character in one of his works named "Ima." Either they never thought of how it would sound with her last name (and they were smart, so that doesn't make sense to me) or they just didn't think it would be a big deal. Her grandfather, upon hearing of the proposed name, tried to get to the parents to convince them to name her something else, but he was too late. Oh, to have had email/texting back then.

The name never hindered her. She was an attractive, intelligent, talented woman who had many suitors but never married. I guess she had no burning desire to "marry out of" that name. There is often talk that she had a sister named Ura Hogg, but that is a myth.

 

[mvazul]

I had a good friend in high school that played club hockey for a high school in Indianapolis (Warren Central, IIRC). One of his teammates, who I personally met, was name Memo Morning. He had several sisters that were all named after meteorological conditions. Two that I remember were "Rainy" and "Misty".

My best friend, and my best man, had a paper route near our home and had a customer that named her kid "KC" because she loved KC and the Sunshine Band.

I went to school with a girl who is named Stormy Heather (first and middle names). Our band director couldn't stop laughing when he first found out. I had always liked it.