Dr. Marijuana Pepsi wrote a whole thesis on unique names.
And on Wikipedia you can read about Marijuana’s farm.
Did these casuals even check if xXPussySlayer42069Xx was taken?
Been taken since the early 90s. I’ve always been proud of my username/email I’ve been using since 96. No numbers or anything. (Not this name by the way)
I choose to believe this is the real xXPussySlayer42069Xx
The legend is among us.
At my job, I come across a lot of children’s names. So many, that I can actually sympathize with parents who want an odd name. Names are supposed to be a unique identifier, so if you wanna name a kid “Revolution Fighter” or “Czarlanda,” I get it. I can certainly find a kid with that name in our databases faster than I can find a “John Anderson” or an “Adam Wu.”
What really kills me is parents who name their kids a normal sounding name, but with an insane spelling. I’m talking like “Shelley” spelled “Schelei” or “Alexander” spelled “Alexzander.” You’re not being clever or cute, you’re just going to make your child’s life unnecessarily harder as they have to spell their name out every. single. time.
We still have about 5 years before the first wave of incorrectly-spelled Khaleesis start showing up at county courthouses en masse.
What is the correct spelling? Is that even a name?
It’s a title given to Daenerys in Game of Thrones, the Doth’raki word for “queen”. Her subjects call her that but a lot of dumbasses thought it was her name.
Khaleesi is the title of a fictional character in Game of Thrones, but not a proper name.
I read this a while ago (scroll down into section II for the graphs) which conducted a survey to see how happy people were with their names. The consensus seems to be that, for the most part, people just want names that don’t annoy them constantly. Very common names rank lower than less common names, until the names become very uncommon. More normal or traditional names rank higher than more modern or creative names.
The conclusion I drew was that people want a normal name spelled a normal way, that is not too common. Why? Because if your name is too common, you are always confused with other people (cue saying “Michael” in a crowded room and having 5 people turn towards you). But if your name is too uncommon, people will constantly mis-spell and mispronounce it, so you will constantly either be correcting people or having to ignore it. If you have a common name with a unique spelling, then people will always misspell your name unless you spell it out for them. And of course, if you are named after a sci fi character or a name that rhymes with your twin, you will probably be bullied for it in middle school.
So if you are naming a kid, your best bet is to look through the current common baby names and pick one somewhere between 100 and 1000 most popular, after eliminating weird spellings or names that can easily be turned into mean nicknames. Bonus points if you can tie the name into your cultural heritage or you have an admirable anscestor to name your kid after.
I have a first name that’s been in use for a couple thousand years now. I’m happy with it. They’re classics for a reason.
A simple safe bet is to choose a name from a related language.
For example, Renato is common in Portuguese but not in Spanish, however no Spanish speaking person is going to misspell it (and to this example, I doubt anyone speaking a European language would)
I have friends with really common names, like Mike and Robert Jones common. They don’t want to change it, but it has been a tremendous pain in their asses. It’s annoying to be the 3rd person in your class with the same first name, but imagine having a high school class with someone who has the same first and last name.
That spelling of Alexzander a lot of times comes from non American countries (maybe Czech? Unsure)
Look at Alex Lifesons real name lol. I cant spell it
Not actually why they did it. I can quote the parent here, because for some reason they felt the need to immediately justify the spelling. “I just thought it’d be cool to do something different.”
He has a Serbian name though, which is definitely not the same as just spelling it weird on purpose.
name out every. single. time.
“Czarlanda,” I get it. I
Names aren’t supposed to be unique. Your whole name doesn’t even need to be unique. And when you adda middle-name or two, no matter what basic ass names you’ve chosen it’s gonna be unlikely that anyone within reasonable distance would be named exactly the same.
Thank God my country has a law preventing this type of child abuse
It’s a child not a vanity plate
When choosing my son’s name I had two rules:
- No super popular top 10 or 20 name. There were plenty of very popular choices that I liked as names. But, I figured let’s try to find something at least a little unique for various reasons.
However!
- They shall not need to spell their name every time they tell it to somebody. This implies a few things, like choosing an established first name people have heard before rather than making something up, and using the common spelling of that name.
This seems rational and thoughtful.
Thanks! That’s usually what I’m going for.
I had a very similar strategy, except I was trying to avoid top 50. I once told a stranger my kid’s name and they said “I like it. Unique, but not weird”. That comment made me so happy!
Yeah, I wasn’t very particular about how far up the list. Top 50 was probably too much in most cases.
Looking back for my son’s birth year, his name is just barely in the top 100 for boys. So top 200 overall.
That’s actually more popular than I expected it to be, but it is definitely in the very broad sweet spot we’re talking about.
Looking back at my birth year, my name is in the top 10! That’s even more surprising because it didn’t feel that way at all. I think there was one other kid with the same name in my graduating class of hundreds. Yet I distinctly remember there was one class one year that had SIX "John"s.
edit: that’s six Johns out of a single classroom of maybe 30 people at most, not a different graduating class. They were in my grade!
A British singer just had a baby boy and named it Forever Sugar. Wild.
Do people just hate their children? There’s so many good names to choose, just the longest list of them. There’s nicknames upon nicknames, but every goddamn child has to have a combination of letters that’ve never been used before. Look, I’m not saying that everyone should name their kids Edith and Edward, but we also don’t need a bunch of Brekinleighlynnes and Jahckxsonz running around. I feel very passionately about this subject. Pick a name that’s either been used before (that isn’t ass), or at least a name that sounds like a fucking name. I feel very strongly about this subject.
This whole post triggered me.
I love my mum and dad very much.
But it gets somewhat tedious when you have to spell your name quite possibly over a hundred thousand times in your lifetime.
Yeah, it’s annoying to spell my 5 letter last name once in a while. I can only imagine it gets quite a bit worse with increasing frequency and letters. If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your first name?
If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your first name?
Mother’s maiden name as well, if you please.
Would also love to hear your thoughts on your first pet’s name?
Oh, and your 3rd grade teacher’s name, just to compare.
It’s a valid question in a convo about names. I’m curious lol I understand the need for privacy, it’s important. I asked if they’d be willing to share, I just like crying at Tragedeighs once in a while.
As someone with a long name, the bane of my existence is signing online forms without a touch screen. I just had to sign off on four different consent forms online for a new doctor’s office - using my mouse.
I usually take time with my signature, but for this I did the lazy thing of a stylized first letter, followed by a squiggle. I don’t like doing that and don’t want to do that… but I’m tired, y’all.
My oldest has a name from one of my grandparents’ ancestors (I think their grandparent or great-grandparent) that’s not common in my country (my grandparent was an immigrant). The name is easy to pronounce, but unfortunately there’s a celebrity with a similar name, so people always mistake it for that name.
The other two are very common here and haven’t caused issues. But the one foreign name has been a serious problem, but fortunately my kid loves their name, and it’s unique without being a pain to spell.
Actor Rob Morrow named his daughter “Tu”. “Tu Morrow”. Seriously.
Actors are notoriously dumb. I’m friends with a famous person and it’s sad when you realize they’re usually just surrounded by people kissing their ass and afraid to tell them no, you’re wrong. People are so shallow they’ll agree with anything if it keeps them in their company. No one is truthful around them. One of the reasons we got along was my “ability” to be real with him, as if that is actually a talent i have or something. Truly sad that people think so much of celebrity when they’re just people.
Tula works with Tu as a nickname, but just Tu… eh
Is Vagina an acceptable girl’s name?
I remember a girl telling me a story back in high school when she was in a class that would go and interact with 1st and 2nd graders. She told the story of her meeting a young girl with a name tag that said “Gina”, so she said “hi Gina”. The girl responded “its pronounced Gyna”. She said she had to turn and walk away as to not laugh in the girl’s face.
I could have rocked Whisky Jones my entire life no problem.
Yeah, sounds like a badass bluesman.
It does sound badass, but it sounds really feminine to me actually.
I know someone with relatives in China where they gave their kids nicknames that roughly translate to “first baby”, “second baby”, etc. They’re all middle aged adults now and they’re still addressed by the same nicknames. So you have kids listening to their grandparents talk about “second baby” and imagining a baby, but then you meet them and it’s an old man.
I met a couple who named their daughter Grendel, because they thought it sounded nice.
She better stay the heck away from Denmark.
I know an Eowyn. And a Beren.
I have a friend whose siblings are named Eowyn, Arwen, Lorien, and Dave.
I kinda feel bad for Dave.
Guess which parent named each of them Hint, it’s who you would think
Yeah lord of the rings characters are fair game for names. Really just give popular media like a decade or two before you name your kid after it. Though it may be wise to never leave out the R in your Margrat.
Better than Grendel
Hopefully she doesn’t encounter any bee hunters.
This is a stupid joke about compound meanings in old English.
Did they know Beowulf out was it just a nice sounding name? Because Grendel…wasn’t nice.
I attended my kids award ceremony (he’s 10) and there were multiple girls ages 11 and 12 called Khaleesi and I shook my head
I wish I was named kitchenaid whiskey jones
You can always change it
This is where I bitch about my white people Utah name but I’m not willing to dox myself.
i’m so sorry Mahonri.
We need to normalize naming ourselves, why should we let someone who doesn’t know us yet decide what we should be called forever?
I get you’ve got to be called something but there’s no reason we can’t decide something else later.
If we named ourselves, I guess our names would also serve as a lasting reminder of what our 5 year old selves thought was cool.
I mean, that’s not such a bad thing in the long run but it might get tough when you’re in your teens
Billie Eilish has several middle names. Eilish is in fact one of them. One of them, however, is “Pirate”. Because her parents allowed her big brother to choose one of them when she was born.
Why she doesn’t go by Pirate, I’ll never understand.
I was thinking more when you become an adult you pick your name, I did that and over a decade later I still feel like my name suits me.
It’s a normal name, nothing crazy or spelled weird.
