"What were they thinking!?!" inspired by Geilic name thread

[TinkerBess_SnowTori]

I know two families with very strange names.

Family #1 - twin boys - named Bert and Ernie @@
Family #2 Last name Leer - named their daughter Chanda = Chanda Leer

How about this - Krista Shanda Leer

At least she could just go with Krista

and my room mate in college who named her little boy - Brock - with the middle name of Lee

Yep - Brock Lee

 

[TinkerBess_SnowTori]

I think for every kid with an interesting name that wishes they had a normal name, there is a kid with a normal name wishing they had a interesting name.

So true - which is why my girls have long names they can shorten to nicknames and lengthen when they grow up - or whatever they like to do with them

I wished so hard for something grown up when I was 13 and still just Lori - <sigh>

 

[slk537]

Another Jennifer here. Sigh.

As much as I have never liked my name, I definitely prefer it over "Rainbow" or "Candy Dish" . We picked "Max" for our son mainly because we liked it a lot, but also because it isn't overly common, yet it isn't unusual either.

 

[momrek06]

My DH's grandpa's name is MAUNO and his dad's name VILJO...Now grandpa is right off the boat from Finland but his dad is American born and bred. DH asked me about Finnish names for our sons when I was expecting....

HUM...DH...naaa...we are in America, so I think I will find something OVER HERE!!!

YUP !!! Good Ole US of A!!!!!

On another note: friends of ours just had a little boy: ROMEO!

 

[Caradana]

Noting that I adore my name: Dana. Feminine, common but not too common, cute when the kid is little, professional when the kid is older, available on personalized items, and easy to spell.

 

[Conservative Hippie]

My name is Meghan...common enough, but the spelling is not. Whenever my mom finds something with my name spelled right on it, she gets it for me.

My mom is Mexican, and my dad is Irish-American, so our last name is very Irish. My brothers and I all have very Irish-sounding names (first and middle)--Meghan, Patrick, and Michael. Who knew a girl named Meghan McIrish would end up with a Hispanic Merit scholarship, or that Patrick McIrish would end up so brown? (For the record, Michael is the redhead, and he speaks better Spanish than all of us!)

 

[golfgal]

How would you feel if you found out you were named for your parents' favorite sports channel? Espen anyone?

There is a couple in our old town that had a boy and named him ESPN, that spelling even. Poor kid! I know this man's boss and he WAS named after the tv station.

 

[Cindyluwho]

My DH's grandpa's name is MAUNO and his dad's name VILJO...Now grandpa is right off the boat from Finland but his dad is American born and bred. DH asked me about Finnish names for our sons when I was expecting....

HUM...DH...naaa...we are in America, so I think I will find something OVER HERE!!!

YUP !!! Good Ole US of A!!!!!

On another note: friends of ours just had a little boy: ROMEO!

I grew up in a Finnish community in Southwest Washington. One of my friends was Kata (short for Katrina). Pronounced somewhere between KUT-uh and GUT-uh. I always loved that name and swore one day I'd name my own daughter Kata. My DH said absolutely, NO WAY! Oh, well, I still think it's a beautiful name

 

[momrek06]

I grew up in a Finnish community in Southwest Washington. One of my friends was Kata (short for Katrina). Pronounced somewhere between KUT-uh and GUT-uh. I always loved that name and swore one day I'd name my own daughter Kata. My DH said absolutely, NO WAY! Oh, well, I still think it's a beautiful name

Oh..don't get me wrong, there are allot of lovely Finnish names BUT the two names my DH wanted for our sons just was NOT happening....

PS: They are Christopher and Michael.... good basic AMERICAN names!!!

YUP!!! My DS' are 24 & 20 and I have told them many times how dad wanted to name you after great-grandpa AND grandpa and they are siding with me on MY decision NOT to go Finnish!!

 

[MosMom]

I know people think that about my daughter but I love her name. I think it is classic and sophisticated later in life. Her name is Moira and we call her Mo or Mosey these days and it just fits her. We receive nothing but compliments on how pretty her name is but there are people that can't pronounce it. I honestly never thought it was that hard to pronounce!

I could see "Mo" following her through adulthood for people that know her well.

Our son has a unique but not AS unique. He is an Elliot and it fits him as well. We get a lot of Pete's Dragon and ET jokes though.

 

[Arielle22]

When we named our 2nd dd Emily I didn't realize how popular it was. Now I wish I had stuck with Emma. When I am out and call to her I always call by both first and middle name "Emily Honor" so I don't get a bunch of girls looking at me.

On the other side of the coin, if a name is too unusual, it will never be pronounced properly. At my work we have several employees with unusual names (usually immigrants) who pick a more normal nick name to deal with the public.

 

[lyzziesmom]

When we named our 2nd dd Emily I didn't realize how popular it was. Now I wish I had stuck with Emma.

My 2nd DD is an Emma, and I had no idea how popular it was: the #1 girl's name for 2004! Darn, and I thought it was original. Everywhere we go, I'll call "Emma" and about 4 girls will turn around.

My 1st DD is Elyzabeth, and she prefers to go by Lyzzie. Well thanks in part to Lizzie McGuire, we are noticing a lot of Lizzie's lately - it seems to have become quite popular as well! But I have yet to see any with her spelling, and she loves her unusually spelled name.

The earlier post about 7 Jennifer's cracked me up, because I distinctly remember having exactly 7 Jennifer's in my 3rd grade class. Not in the grade, just in MY CLASS. It got very confusing.

 

[sunnymommy]

I wonder that too

My mom's name is Claudia and she has always told me how sad she was as a child because she could never find her name on printed items - mugs, keychains, etc.

This left a real impression on me, and therefore I named my kids traditional names so they could always find their names on things. I didn't want them to feel sad too

To this day, my mom's name can't be found My DH and I make it a point to always look, and if we should find it, which is basically never, we always buy it and give it to her. Most of the time it's something that she doesn't even want, but it still makes her smile

I had a sorority sister in college named Bahia (she was of Middle Eastern descent) and when she was growing up her mom used to always buy her barrettes and shoelaces that read Betty.

 

[tigerdragon]

You know, it's not always unusual names that get mispronounced. My name is Tanya, pronounced TANya, not TONya, yet that is what I have been called most of my life. I understand that Tonya is more common and that's fine, but even after I have corrected people they still say it the wrong way. I have never understood that. I usually just let it go these days because it becomes too much of a hassle.

My sister's name is Cody and she has always hated her name because it is typically a boy's name. Her middle name is Starr which she loves.

 

[puffkin]

When naming our son, we went the common but not too common route too. My name is Kelly, and I was born in 1980 when it was extremely popular. There were tons of Kelly's, Jennifers, Kimberly's and Jessica's around then. I hated it but now I don't think it is too bad because it isn't as common anymore.

My husbands name is Troy, which I always liked because it was common enough (and easy to pronounce) but there weren't hundreds around. We tried to go a similar route for our son (boys names are hard!) and picked Brady. We get a lot of comments on it that people like it and so far have had no problems with pronunciation. Now his middle name people think is weird but I could care less about that, I think it is cool (Kennedy).

 

[momrek06]

My name (which I posted earlier in the Thread) I do not like: Karen BUT

I wanted to ask anyone this...my parents named me CAROLINE and felt it was wayyyy to much with our last name (maiden O'Connor) so when I was approximately 5 months old they CHANGED MY NAME. Hence, I became Karen!!!

DID ANY OTHER PARENTS CHANGE THEIR CHILD'S NAME?????

 

[lyzziesmom]

DID ANY OTHER PARENTS CHANGE THEIR CHILD'S NAME?????

My parents changed my middle name when I was just a couple months old, from Lou to Louise. I still hate it. It's funny, because on the birth certificate they just crossed out Lou and wrote Louise above it.

I am in the process of changing my 2nd DD's middle and last name, they are currently her paternal great-grandmother's name (middle), who is a woman I've never met, and her father's last name, who we haven't seen since she was 2 months old (turns out he was already married.) I'm having her last name changed to match mine & her sister's last name.

 

[jen0610]

One of my friends from church and school, her parents did not do bad with her name, they just didn't think about the monogram that would occur with her initials. Her name because VDL when monogramed sweaters were a big item back in the 80's.

Needless to say, you got to the first 2 initials and you got no further cause you were laughing your butt off. And to make matters worse, for 3 years in high school, she dated E Zimmerman. At camp it was no big deal to hear people holler at EZ asking were VD was. We were a sad bunch of friends to pick on them so badly.

 

[lyzziesmom]

And to make matters worse, for 3 years in high school, she dated E Zimmerman. At camp it was no big deal to hear people holler at EZ asking were VD was.

That just reminded me... I used to have a friend whose boyfriend's name was Easy. Not a nickname, it was his real first name. And apparently it fit him quite well, because he had I think 3 children that were all born within a couple months of each other, all with different mothers. Egad!

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

I swore after having grown up with a mother who has a very popular name for her age group (FTR--Her name is Kathyryn. One time my stepdad was at church and called her by name while looking for her in a crowd after services. I kid you not--18 women turned around. 18!!!) that I would never give my child a name that was 'trendy' or 'popular'. It took DH and I awhile to decide on DS's name--James. His middle name--Anthony--is after DFIL.

The only thing we didn't think about was the initial spelling out something. His initials spell out JAG. D'oh!

I don't care what he calls himself when he gets older as long as it's not Jim or Jimmy or Jimmie or Jimbo. I HATE those names. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll stick with the nicknames he's got right now--Bubba and Bugs.

TOV