So, you think he's doing Ashton?
Another sodomy comment from you. Is there something you've recently discovered, LB?
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21278619.shtml
my favorite celebrity story of the day.
You know, I really despise Demi Moore, but I think I just changed my mind. More power to her, my sister.
That Dylan story is great. I was thinking of posting about Seven Curses today; I wonder if he's played it for them.
2: It just seemed like the most parsimonious explanation for the relationship.
4. She's not the one to admire here, and be amazed by.
I really despise Demi Moore
I'm unclear on how anybody develops strong feelings one way or the other about Hollywood celebrities.
Ogged, I kind of doubt Dylan has played "Seven Curses" for anyone in the last 40 years.
I'm thinking he's trying out new material on the kids.
She's not the one to admire here, and be amazed by
Yeah, it's Kutcher for bagging a woman old enough to be his mom.
8: I find after HMS it's hard to keep all the emotions in check.
It occurs to me that Willis will be a very likable character actor when he finally becomes an official Old Guy.
Yeah, it's Kutcher for bagging a woman old enough to be his mom.
And Rumor just went legal (and is closer in age to Kutcher than her mom is). Well played, Ashton, well played.
8: Her movies appall.
7: She obviously has excellent taste in men, and knows how to live well. Both admirable characteristics.
Moore and Willis' daughter is named "Rumor"? That's awesome. What poem am I thinking of that has a homeric simile involving rumors and how they get around? There's probably more than one; you have to identify the one I'm thinking of.
16 - this one?
Look at all these rumors,
Surrounding me every day
I just need some time, some time to get away from
From all these rumors,
can't take it no more
My best friend said, "hey did you hear about the girl next door, oh..."
Article:452536 Not Found
Moore and Willis' daughter is named "Rumor"?
No, Rumer.
One of Rumor's sisters is called "Malicious Gossip". The third sister is called "Cosmetic Surgery". "Rumor"'s nickname is "Roomer".
I was surprised to read there that Moore is only 44. 29 to 44 isn't such a big deal. The way people talk about it I had figured she was in her mid 50s like Bruce.
"Old enough to be his mom" is biologically correct, but she's realistically 10 years removed from his mom's social cohort.
And isn't Willis a Republican? What kind of Republican names his kids Rumer, Scout and Talluhah?
Really remarkable of all of them. But I've never understood why so many celebrities have to give their offspring ridiculous soap opera names like "Scout" and "Tallulah."
"Tallulah" is an awesome name. "Scout" and "Rumer," however, are terrible.
Yeah, it's Kutcher for bagging a woman old enough to be his mom.
You believe he's really 29? I sure don't.
28: Oh, no one would bat an eye if you flipped the genders -- older woman/younger man is still rare enough to be worthy of comment.
Denied, JM. Scout is an awesome name, and Rumer--once you get past the homonym--is as well.
Couldn't they have named her Jean Louise and called her Scout?
Scout's pretty silly. I like unusual names, but that one just screams "the only book I read was about this dead mockingbird?"
I guess they're not really that bad in the weird celebrity kid names contest, overall. I feel really bad for Apple Paltrow (Apple? wha?) and Racer, Rebel and Rocket Rodriguez.
35: Yeah, that would be awesome.
Speaking as someone with a weird name, I'm totally in favor of weird names, and think all of you need to fucking chill out. The only celeb kid names worth mocking are the Jackson clan's.
32: I would, it's always hilarious and disgusting when I see a pairing of people that far apart in age. I always want to go up to the younger person and say "You know, there's almost certainly someone just as rich/funny/nice, whatever, but also young and good-looking who will not need their diapers changed while you're in your 40s."
This temptation is especially strong when I see extremely attractive women my age or a little older on the arm of some middle-aged mediocrity.
Why does Rodriguez have a kid named after a bitter green?
35 gets it exactly right, although certain counties of Los Angeles will never be persuaded by it.
The only celeb kid names worth mocking are the Jackson clan's.
The Zappa kids, perhaps?
38: Your name is unusual, but not weird or made-up. Unusual is fine. "Apple" is to be avoided.
certain counties of Los Angeles
Oh, come on. The horrors: creative people who aren't in touch with Heartland Values.
The Zappa kids have awesome names. Who could dislike "Moon Unit Zappa"?
Where's NZ Mark when you need him?
32: Definately, but I was still surprised the age difference wasn't larger.
38: I actually think the names are pretty cool - it's just not the sort of thing one expects from Republican parents.
39: This temptation is especially strong when I see extremely attractive women my age or a little older on the arm of some middle-aged mediocrity.
That's called "envy," I think. Which would make a great celebrity kid name.
42: I kinda dig the Zappa kids' names.
It's the insisting that your "unusual and unique" name be official that makes it so, so LA.
48: I kinda do, too, but it can't be easy to go through life as a girl named Diva Muffin.
39: Come on, really? A 30 year old dating a 44 year old? This isn't exactly Anna Nicol territory.
Just how soon are you planning to be wearing diapers?
Yeah, but B, you named your kid 'Pseudonymous', setting him up for life as a long-haired, but "unique" blogger.
43: In fact it was made up.
50: Meaning that people give their kids unusual legal names? So?
47: Great idea. Parents with seven kids could name them after the seven deadly sins, the way people used to do with the virtues.
51: I'd take Diva Muffin over, say, Tiffany.
Unusual names:
My boyfriend's name is Jamaal. He had a football coach in middle school who almost cried in front of the team when he found out the transfer student was a skinny white kid.
Having an unusual name is often a sign of moral failings.
I think that the problem is that Ashton looks very A. A. Milne -- young (for 29) and gay.
47: Eh, not really, I'd never be able to date a girl who was with a much older man. The smell of old is absolutely impossible to wash off. You're right about Envy being a great LA kid name, though, especially if they have green eyes.
52: Ok, 15 years age difference isn't as bad as a lot of the pairings I see around here. It's just kind of mystifying. And the point is that the years from 45 to 60 are HUGE changes in physical ability and appearance, 30 to 45 aren't so much (for people who with helpful genes who are wealthy and able to take care of themselves). Even ignoring the obvious differences socially and experience-wise between people with a large age gap, the physical gap between the two people will expand fast at these kinds of ages to the level where any kind of physical attraction baffles me.
54: But other people have your name, so it didn't entirely come from nowhere. (Actually, other people have both your real name and your blog name.)
54: Made up by whom? Google finds several others, at least one considerably older.
56: Diva Muffin would have the advantage of making unflattering nicknames superfluous.
59: Bite me.
64: Ageist. Seriously.
B's real first name is a mathematical object or science-fiction entity, isn't it? No wonder she turned out the way she did.
65, 66: Both true, and I've met other people with the same name. Like me, every one of them says their parents made it up. Parallel inventiveness, or whatever it's called.
67: No one really uses nicknames. "Diva" would be a perfectly fine first name for the kind of girl who is willing and able to breezily dismiss dumb ass jokes about her name. Which people should be taught to do as toddlers, imho.
Not to be all me, me, me about weird names, because I know I've said this before, but:
For the record, my real name was made up and I've never heard of anyone else having it. I'm the only one according to Google, too. And it is not a cool name by any stretch.
57: I've had many people tell me they were surprised to discover that "Russell Barnes" was attached to a white guy.
73: Her name is boskrat, she's saying.
74 - I could see that.
Also I knew an asian girl in college named Roshan. Until then, I'd only known big black guys named Roshan. She said other people had told her that before.
74: Heh, I've had that reaction a time or two myself.
72: It's Dorkus, isn't it? Because your parents didn't want to go with the traditional spelling of Dorcas.
64: Maybe it just depends who you know.
For me, I've been surprised to find that I now know quite a few boring ass 30-somethings who make my grandparents look hip, while also knowing a handful of way cool, enjoy-the-hell-out-of-life 60- somethings.
I'd actually rather change some diapers than hang out with some of the uber-bores who are my own age.
Yes, I'm bitter about some of my friends becoming completely dull.
I'm inclined to agree with 38 (and also, 49). Although, I don't even think "Scout" counts. I know 2 non-Hollywood, non-Hippie couples my age who named a kid Scout.
Tallulah probably counts as weird, but also great.
I suspect that there's more to B's defense of odd names than her own. I think that, in anticipation of her eventual move back to SoCal, she named PK something like Talon Isidore or Jett Moses and she's bracing herself for the inevitable outing of her naming choice.
73: That looks like the best book EVAR.
Diva Muffin seems like a name that would be hard to put on a resume.
64: So, hanging out on an immigration board, you see a *lot* of May-December relationships, of the bride-is-19-and-the-groom-is-55 variety. To stereotype broadly but more or less accurately, the woman's usually from an impoverished country, the American guy is usually a divorcé who doesn't want to marry an American woman because she thinks she has rights/is fat/they're all feminists/foreign women know how to treat a man, and you figure that she's interested in him for security and he because he can have sex with a teenager....
It's pretty bothersome, but then you figure that in 20 years, he'll be dead, and she'll have a green card, if not citizenship in her late thirties.
"In the year 2139, fearless Bitch Ph.D. sets out to rescue her beleaguered planet SoCal from the savage rule of the evil Arnold. Experienced in combat but not in love, the beautiful, untouched Amazon flies with Pseudonymous Kid, her wise-cracking, free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reigns supreme--and into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish: the bronzed barbarian Mr. B."
70: a mathematical object or science-fiction entity
"Pentomino"? "Fibonacci"? "Quanta"? "Singularity"?
75: Come on. You have to admit that that the fortuitousness of that link is fucking hilarious.
You should see the cover on my own copy of the book. The male model was, in fact, Fabio. And the background color is purple. I couldn't be prouder.
"Diva" would be a perfectly fine first name for the kind of girl who is willing and able to breezily dismiss dumb ass jokes about her name. Which people should be taught to do as toddlers, imho.
Not everyone can do that. She's starting with a handicap. And if she wasn't already rich, it would lead to some prejudice.
78: My name is NOT dorkus, you big jerkbutt. Take that back.
81: In all honesty, it's not b/c I have a weird name: it's just that the arguments in favor of convention--but he'll be teased! But it'll look weird on a resume! But it's so Hollywood!--just irritate me. It really is okay not to fit in, and I'm impatient with conventionalism for its own sake.
58, 59 and 68:
LOL, serves the coach right.
Ack!. That "word" causes me physical pain.
HA! is allowed. LOL is not.
You should really keep your mouth shut until the "ax murdered by the men in her life" window has closed a bit, B.
You only say that because you are experienced in combat, but not in love.
79: Fair enough, that has got to be depressing to go through. I guess I just have faith in the sheer number of people out there ensuring that there will always be someone more compatible in my age range.
When we decided to name our son Keegan (which I still think is a totally awesome name), the ex and I chose Scott as his middle name so he would have something mainstream to use if he decided to.
Keegan's a great name. It doesn't seem that weird to me.
87: One, she is rich. Two, her father is Frank Zappa, for god's sake; she's not going to "pass" as "normal" regardless. Three, she's not growing up in Council Bluffs IA.
Handicap my ass.
93: Stop threatening me, Ogged. Anyway, what kind of a name is "Ogged"?
91: Whereas -- and I'm sure this is my NorCal upbringing talking here -- I'm impatient with unconventionalism for its own sake. Misspelling your child's name does not make him or her more of a unique and special snowflake, parents of Britnees and Kalebs everywhere.
To be fair, I'm sure Talon Isidore's still an awesome kid despite his name.
I totally agree with 91. Conventionality is abrasive too. Weird names aren't that really a burden to put on your kid.
Weird kids with normal names get raked over the coals. Cool kids with weird names get a free pass. It's not the name.
99: He goes by his ethnic slur spelled backwards.
97: It's now a more popular name than Russell, by a pretty solid margin.
100: Sure, pretension is annoying. But for god's sake, people's names are their own damn business, and not everyone has the proper middle class values about the importance of fitting in with the Joneses.
Agreed with 97. Keegan is a perfectly fine name.
So long as you combine 2-4 phonemes that aren't uncommon in the local tongues, spell them in a vaguely conventional and/or phonetic way, and make sure they sound good strung together and aren't an actual word (or closely resembling one), you're pretty much fine. It's not that restrictive, people, but it seems to be a pretty good heuristic for what names I consider ridiculous.
100.---Having been raised in the People's Republic, I very much agree with you.
Kolob, on the other hand, is an awesome name.
My sister-in-law is named Hobie, after a boat (Hobie Cat). She was fine with it growing up.
B. is the wrong person to argue that peculiar names don't cause you to become sick and twisted.
As a teenager, though, she was teased for being fast.
As kids, my sisters and I lobbied pretty hard for one of our cousins to be named Hobie. We failed.
Oh yeah, and as 57 and 76 show, you take account of the possible cultural ramifications of certain name sounds, but I think Jamaal and Roshan are both awesome names. The latter sounds even more Celtic to me than black American.
Yeah, yeah, and I'm abusing my kid by not holding him down and giving him a crewcut, too.
Isn't this supposed to be a blog populated by people who were themselves kind of outsidery as kids? Self-loathing much, people?
104: Except that your name goes with you out into the world, and affects your interactions with the world. Call your kid whatever you want, just be aware that in 30 years she'll be at the DMV going, "No, it's K-A-I-G-H-L-E-E" for the 548,000th time.
Also, you're awfully quick to bust out the "but you're a middle-class conformist" trope with people you don't even know.
Except that your name goes with you out into the world, and affects your interactions with the world. Call your kid whatever you want, just be aware that in 30 years she'll be at the DMV going, "No, it's K-A-I-G-H-L-E-E" for the 548,000th time.
Yeah, I have to spell my name constantly. It's not that big a deal. Really, worrying over what other people name their kids seems awfully concern trollish, if you think about it.
I'm not accusing people of being middle class conformists. I'm saying that the "those people can't even spell their own kids' names" thing is a middle class conformist prejudice.
Well, I hate to be the first to jump this into sports and race, but what I love about football are the awesome names. For a while I thought that D'Brickashaw Ferguson could only be tied and never beaten, but I think I'm naive and something will come along soon.
I've always liked Frostee and Plaxico, but lately I think it's just gotten ridiculous with Yourhighness Morgan coming along. I think there's a Justise in the league, too.
I know last names don't count, but I've always been in awe of Bobby Purify and Richie Incognito, among others.
The best sports names so far are God Shammgod and Dick Trickle.
I basically agree with Magpie and JM. Hell, my last name is a perfectly good, real foreign name, and I always have to spell it out. At least I came by that honestly.
Refusing to conform to conventional standards can be equally repressive depending on where one lives.
Unusual names are not to be despised for being weird, but ugly ones should be avoided, because they are ugly.
I believe that God Shamgod was doomed by his name; no one can live up to that.
I have to spell my last name constantly, and it's WASPy as all get-out, just hyphenated.
This has come up before, but by JAC's heuristic, one of my daughters has a ridiculous name, though it's very common in Ireland and not that uncommon here (and is sometimes mistaken for black American because of how it sounds). I don't necessarily expect people to be able to pronounce 'Siobhan' (though I'm mildly surprised by well-read people who claim never to have encountered it before), but big deal, it's not as though she's been saddled with some kind of burden. I'll admit to having a chip on my shoulder, because our surname (which is easy enough to find out) was constantly being mispronounced when I was growing up, especially by elementary school teachers taking roll call at the beginning of the year. Hello? You're supposed to be my teacher, for Christ's sake.
However, some names are a burden:
I volunteered with a group of kids, one of whom was named Sirpatrick. Several times when this shy kid introduced himself to new volunteers, they thought he was giving them lip. He didn't have the composure to explain the situation very well.
However, if you name your kid Allmighty Master Supreme Mayo, you can't act surprised when he's jailed for pimping. And then sometimes pretty-sounding names (phonetically) can turn out unpleasant.
My grandfather spelled my name wrong with every possible variation on every Christmas present, and my parents didn't even make up my name.
120: Same here. My last name is somewhat uncommon outside England, so most people in the US thinks I'm not giving them the whole name when I just say it aloud.
Is that Dick Trickle the race driver, or is there another famous sportsman by that name, Mr. obviously-not-from-Edmonton?
115: I'm saying that, in my opinion, spelling your (white, middle-class) kid's name in an "unusual" way, for the sake of making your kid "special," is a lame pretension. If Kaighlee's parents are losing one second of sleep over my opinion on this subject, then they really need to get a life.
I'm also saying that assuming a level of witless middle-class conformity based on someone's opinion on one subject ("not everyone has the proper middle class values about the importance of fitting in with the Joneses") is pretty presumptuous.
Is that Dick Trickle the race driver
Yes.
I knew a very liberal family who gave their first child, a girl, the father's surname and the second child, aboy, the mother's. I thought that that was kind of cruel to the kids and likely to be confusing to school administrators. A nice hyphenated name would have been preferable. I don't think I'd liek having a different last name from my sister, in part, becasue it ties us together.
Now I'm definitely going to change Siobhan's name, but I can't decide between 'God Shammgod' and 'Sirfnaked.'
The name "Spiro T. Agnew" gets lodged in my brain sometimes, for no apparent reason. I just find it poetic.
129: "Not confusing school administrators" really should be pretty low on the list of "things to consider when naming your child."
117: I'm partial to Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp.
98: iirc, all Zappas kids named themselves (hence `moon unit') at some point. could be apocryphal, though.
There's not a perfect solution. We all hyphenated, but it's a bitch -- I spell it constantly, it gets misfiled all the time (why would you file a hyphenated name under the first letter of the second half? People do.) people drop half -- it's annoying. So your options are mother changes name, father changes name (low odds on that one happening), everyone has an annoying name, or someone's last name won't match someone else's. Having the siblings not match doesn't seem all that much different than having a parent not match a kid.
Let's just call everybody 'George Foreman' and be done with it.
Tallulah Willis has just changed her name to "Lula". Evidently Ms Bankhead is not her favourite actress.
Given that one's children are attending school with classmates who have odder and odder names, "Scout" is, well, ordinary. My favourite name, to date, is "LaFelonia".
My ex-State Department friend reports, btw, that "Female" is, indeed, a common name in Nigeria. ["It was on her birth certificate."] The best I've heard, tho', was "Aschaffenburg Bavaria Jones". She was born there, and the father couldn't read German, so he didn't understand that was the address of the hospital.
Okay, okay. If I ever have a son, I'll name him Gayatollah because it's pretty, and I know he'll be the only one in his kindergarten.
129: That's what my wife and I did. We have had no problems with it at all.
121: I do kind of like the name Siobhan, it sounds great. And at least you are spelling it the standard way, so anyone who is familiar with the name can recognize it on sight or sound. Sure, it's unusual/funny, so you'll run into a lot of people who can't spell or say it, but that's not a vast burden as you said.
The two rules that I think carry the most weight out of my heuristic are:
1) Spell it conventionally, or if the name is made up, spell it fairly phonetically. Otherwise, you just look knee-jerk anti-conformist on one of the least meaningful things imaginable, and you will always be correcting spellings and pronounciations.
2) Don't use a damn word for a name!
134: And Fausto Carmona and Lastings Milledge. Not to mention Kennesaw Mountain Landis.
127: More presumptuous than having opinions about what other people name their kids? Tough call.
136: I have a slightly different but related problem. Both my first and last names are simple and fairly well known; but they both work as first or last names. So I'm always being misfiled because someone decides I filled out a form the wrong way round.
Once at a new job I didn't get paid for the first month on time because a helpful payroll employee had decided they were the wrong way round (and not called to ask). So payroll bounced because my name `didn't match' SSN.
Apo, how the hell is it that you do a post about someone named "Allmighty Master Supreme Mayo" and everyone who went to grade school with him shows up at your blog?
141: It's not even unusal though, depending where you are. Nothing like the made up names...
Also, "not confusing school administrators" sets an impossible standard, not one that should be respected. I've got friends who melded their last names into one new one related to both. Not everybody can or would want to do that.
My wife kept her name, the kids use mine. School administrators still sometimes fumble. But just as LB refers to her kids as "Breaths," mine are thought by most people to be extensions of my wife's family, lucky kids, and are sometimes collectively included under that name. They'v grown up thinking of themselves that way.
140: I suspect it's what we'll do if we have another.
139: There ya go! Plus, you'll be striking a blow against homophobia early, when it counts most.
I pretty much agree with Magpie. It's really low on the list of considerations of life in general, but if you think that your daughter would have been the fifth Madison in her class, but now she's the unique Maddicynn, you're not really as unique as you think you are. You don't get any more uniqueness with Maddicynne, and you get a lot of misspellings.
And I associate that with middle-class conformity more than anything -- follow the trend, don't make waves, but tweak it just enough so you can claim to be unique and individualistic. My sister knew seven Caitlins (spelled everything from Katelyn to Catlyn) and one who pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with "hat" instead of "hate." (Which I think is closer to the real pronunciation.)
Verdict? Caitlin: not really a unique name among 21-year-olds.
You could let the kids decide, the way Picabo Street's parents did, but then both of my daughters would be called something like Poopypoop.
136: I have a guy friend who changed his name to his wife's. Her name is more reflective of their shared ethnic background and he's the youngest of 6, so I don't think his parents were so attached to the idea of him Carrying On The Family Name. I'm really hoping that in a generation or so, people won't see that as so freakish.
139: I can't wait to see pictures of little Gayatollah with the tiny, photoshopped bearded head. Aww!
141: I agree with you, but of course people can mangle the spelling of anything, as I learned when I moved to a very conventionally-named street: "Yeah, that's 123 Main.. M-A-I-N."
151: I've also met a couple that just picked a new one. Except for potential `family name' problems with your parents/grandparens, seems like a good solution to me.
Also, I have no idea what to do about my last name when I get married. Suggesting I didn't want to change it got me yelled at by my maid of honor for not being serious about marriage and a flurry of leaflets about how I needed marriage counselling.
129: In these high-divorce days, many kids have siblings with different last names. I should think schools [and kids] have got used to it by now.
136 - The ex and I didn't hyphenate the Offspring's name, because it was too long to fit on most forms. I'm waiting for hyphenates to marry hyphenates and figure out what to call themselves.
My first name is more likely to be found on headstones dating from the 1800's than now. Most people just look at me blankly and assume it's my last name. [Which, altho' WASPy and well-known, many folk try to pronounce as it it were Middle Eastern. Go figure...]
129: I know a couple who did that, and they reported having the same problem! Weird, you figure schools'd be used to it by now, with blended families.
153: It's your name. Fuck what other people think about it. Including me, if you want to change it.
all Zappas kids named themselves
Nope. There are many, many interviews where FZ was asked how he came up with his kids' names.
Also, all my kids have my last name. The lines of authority must be clearly delineated and maintained, people.
157: I must be remembering someone else then -- -any idea who?
I once had a student whose given name was Emp/ress. Gods but I hated her mother.
I have a cousin named Uten/sia. One of my uncles who doesn't especially like her calls her "Old Spoon" behind her back.
I was just thinking, a fantastic name for a little girl would be Gorgonzola.
The lines of authority must be clearly delineated and maintained, people.
I'm actually pretty cool with paternal surnames, on the grounds that it constitutes a public acknowledgement of paternity. After all, the mother is not going to be in doubt.
Of course, you could use the same argument in favor of maternal surnames, depending on how important you think it is that surnames reflect biology.
149: EXACTLY.
143: What's presumptuous about having an opinion? It's not like I share that opinion with Madicynn's parents, nor would I expect anyone to make a naming decision about their kid on my say-so.
40 -- it was considered preferable to "Rape Rodriguez".
God Shamgod is a great name, but I think Scientific Mapp is the all-time winner, although he never made the pros.
Tallulah? Gosh.
My favorite insane name is "Salamander." I really think it would be an awesome girl's name, if that bitch LB hadn't already taken it.
But Keegan is on record saying, "For the 500th time, it's Keegan-then-the-symbol-apostrophe. There's no letters, just put the goddamned hatchmark down for my last name."
Dweezil was not actually on his birth certificate, because the hospital refused to put it on, so his birth certificate read "Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa" (after FZ just rattled off the names of some of the members of his band), but they always called him Dweezil. When he found out it wasn't on his birth certificate, he chose to have it legally changed to Dweezil. Maybe that's what you're recalling?
There was a pre-war British aviator named Cave-Brown-Cave. Caves and Brown-Caves, or Cave-Browns, obviously didn't think of themselves as belong to the same family, and wanted to be respected, I guess.
162: It's obnoxious to focus class hatred (or whatever it is) on children. Have an opinion, fine; but picking on kids or mocking people's names is pretty lame.
We're still debating the middle name for the girl that's coming at the end of the month. Talullah was one of the early considerations, but has been discarded.
167: mmmm... perhaps. it's hard being old and drug addled.
I can't stop laughing about God Shammgod. How could you announce a game he was in without falling off your chair?
64: My wife is older than I by more than 15 years and we have not really had much of a problem with the gap, a bit further along now than Demi and young Ashton.
Stalin Colinet. Only Dominican in the NFL, almost the only NYC New Yorker in the NFL.
Fennis Dembo. One year wonder in college basketball.
"Lula" is the normal nickname for Tallulah. at least for the one I knew (who grew up in Tallulah, La.) From Google, "Tallulah" seems to be a fairly common geographical and personal name in the South.
153: I'd turn it around on her and ask why she doesn't think Shivbunny's not serious about marriage because he (presumably) wants to keep his name, but it sounds like the point would be totally lost on your maid of honor.
Last name decisions are bound to piss somebody off no matter which way you go, so go with your gut on this one.
156: I know, but everyone is driving me crazy. Plus, I can't figure out whether I want to hyphenate, whether I want to just add his name, but where to add it? Before or after mine? Hyphen? no hyphen?
Can I say the idea of changing my name is freaking me out a little? Rigid designators, people!
picking on kids or mocking people's names is pretty lame.
To be fair, I think the mocking is directed at the parents.
My mom has some old friends named Sig and Lejean. For years I thought it was a single person named "Siggleajean".
!69.--But, but, it's equally obnoxious to project your desire to be special and unique and not-bourgeois onto a kid and then saddle him or her with a name they'll be stuck with for years. But, you know, whatever. My little Gayatollah will appreciate my sense of humor, and that's all the audience I need.
Just keep your name. Getting it changed is a big pain in the ass, sufficiently so that you'll be doubly put out when you get divorced.
176: FWIW, the simplest thing to do is to not change it. No paperwork, no nothing. Easier to trace you later when you become famous, or if someone's doing research on women philosophers or something. Think of the archivists!
Okay, sorry. I know you don't need more hassle about the name thing.
96: last night I was watching a concert film of Robyn Hitchcock, one of the musicians playing with him was named "Captain Keegan".
181: will nobody think of the children?
112:
Isn't this supposed to be a blog populated by people who were themselves kind of outsidery as kids? Self-loathing much, people?
Leaving aside the snark of the last sentence -- is it supposed to be a blog like that?
There's a lot of conformism here.
In any case, having been graced with an entirely conventional, white-bread, unthreatening and unmusical name, I'd love to confuse officialdom with it on occasion. Sadly, no. One of these days I'll find another name.
169: Who said I'm focusing hatred (of class or anything else) on children? And why are you putting so very much weight on my opinion in a forum where people casually throw around all kinds of strong opinions about all kinds of subjects? I'm baffled that you seem to be taking this so personally.
If I ever meet PK, I won't make fun of his name, even if he's really named Talon Isidore. Promise.
179: Sure, but I mean--it's *their* kid, not mine. I'll content myself with second-guessing parents who are actually harming their kids, and argue until the cows come home that most parents could really stand a little less judgmental bullshit in their lives, thanks.
162: It's obnoxious to focus class hatred (or whatever it is) on children.
Oh, come on. Middle-class pretentious suburbanites have GOT to be fair game, or what else is petty judgmentalism for? Can we specify that we're not talking about an actual unusual name like PK has, or a name from an ethnic group, but someone taking a popular name and throwing a handful of Y's at it?
I believe the dissonance is B thinking of the deprecation leveled at the black underclass, and even middle class, really, while others are thinking mostly of the kind of lame, white middle-class customizing Cala literally spelled out.
A (black) teacher at my daughter's school caused a stir that made the papers when he admonished a girl in class: "Don't be such a Bokeesha!"
but where to add it? Before or after mine? Hyphen? no hyphen?
If you're planning to use the whole thing as a surname, rather than mostly dropping half, hyphenate. We tried not hyphenating at first, and would have needed to threaten people with knives to make them use both halves. (OTOH, the blogging Nielsen Haydens are doublebarrelled non-hyphenators, and seem to manage.)
I'm hyphenated His-Mine, and people seem to think that's unconventional. I think the commoner hyphenation pattern is to hyphenate Yours-His, and under at least some circumstances demote the Yours half to a middle name. That's what people seem to be expecting when they look at my last name (Fotherington-Smythe) and file it under S while introducing me as Lizard Smythe.
187: Keep in mind, this is being said by a woman who named her son Mulva.
186: I'm not taking it personally. I happen to feel strongly that it's obnoxious to have petty hangups about how other people parent.
Thanks to this thread, if we have another, I'm naming it "Fuck You."
189: No, I'm really not--although that kind of racist bullshit gets expressed the same way. I'm saying that opinions on other people's names are likely to offend actual real people. Look at Cala's situation with the married name, or Rob's decision w/r/t his kids' surnames, for instance. It's easy to toss around opinions about how other people's unconventional naming practices are silly, but a *lot* of those unconventional naming practices are expressions of things that are really important to people--ethnic identity, feminism.
I just think the name thing, specifically, is fucking rude.
I think I will become the Symbol Formerly Known as Cala. But to be unique, I will be the Cymmbulhe Formerly Known as Khallah.
176: Another possible approach is to not hyphenate, but keep one partner's surname as the children's middle name.
Cala, ordinarily I'd completely agree with Magpie's 175. In your case you may want to consider that it will probably cause *slightly* fewer headaches with immigration paperwork if Shivbunny's wife shares his name (whether hyphenated or not).
Spell it conventionally, or if the name is made up, spell it fairly phonetically.
That's reasonable enough, I suppose. My niece is named Vicktoria--after Michael Vick--and I regret that she'll probably spend her life spelling it for people. Or she can decide to spell it conventionally at some point. But other than the conventional spelling rule, I'm all for unusual names--even if I'm as likely to snicker at one as the next middle-class conformist. Anything that adds a little humor to our dull lives is a good thing.
Count on Unfogged to fight bitterly about the major issues.
Tallulah Bankhead was quite a gal. If you only know her name (as I did) you should go to the Wiki. Nut graf:
Bankhead circulated widely in the celebrity crowd of her day, and was a party favorite for outlandish stunts like performing underwearless cartwheels in a skirt.
If I hyphenate MyName-HisName, it just sounds dumb. HisName-MyName sounds better. bleeehhhhhhh.
Dude, honestly: it's really easy to fill out forms with different last names. Canadians are surprisingly understanding about this, more so than most Americans. You check the "spouse" box, it's good.
And yeah, sure, there are people who call me Mrs. Hissurname. It's really not a big deal.
No matter what anyone says, I maintain that B's life was blighted by her heartless parents' choice of a name. And her last name ain't so hot either.
Oh, as Witt points out, immigration won't think we're legitimately married if I don't change my name because immigration, like their computer systems, are living in 1932.. Wahhhhhhhh.
Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame, wins this whole name contest hands down. His daughter's name is Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette.
Now that's a fucking name.
Tallulah Bankhead stars in my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie (which is by virtue of its being my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie, very likely my favorite movie as well.) Bankhead Lifeboat would be a truly great Unfogged pseudonym if it weren't so obviously derivative.
173: Well, I do wish you two the best of luck, and it certainly seems to have worked out for you. I hope I haven't been too offensive, I just do genuinely find it completely incomprehensible (though a 10-15 year difference is somewhat less so than the 20+ pairings I see around here sometimes).
The thread named "Chill" sure ain't!
194: You're right, of course. It's one thing to relate the little neuroses we have when making our own name decisons, or the awkwardnesses we may have encountered, another to judge others.
I just think the name thing, specifically, is fucking rude.
Yeah, don't make judgments over other people's naming decisions, dammit.
199 - She slept with Garbo and Dietrich and got a near-fatal dose of the clap from George Raft. Hollywood doesn't make 'em like it used to. (Sadly, I believe her quote that Daddy Bankhead warned her away from booze and boys but never said anything about girls and cocaine is apocryphal. But she would have said it!)
199: If you've ever seen Wigstock you'll already know of this but one of my favorite acts featured in that movie is The Dueling Bankheads, two Tallulah-themed drag queens playing air guitar to Born to be Wild (if my memory serves).
Thanks to this thread, if we have another, I'm naming it "Fuck You."
Nah, name them "Phucckuu" to really annoy us. Fuck You is so pleasantly short, euphonic, and conventionally spelled.
202: Grandpa changed the family surname because the original ethnic spelling tended to get mispronounced as a common insult. Now of course it just means everyone thinks I'm a different ethnicity and wants to throw an apostrophe in there, but whatever. Once people learn it, they don't forget it, at least.
210: Note my use of an "I message" in the linked comment, Apo.
"Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?"
214: In one of the recent Soprano's episodes, Phil Leotardo has an awesome monologue about the immigration people changing his family's name when they came over.
2 guesses what it originally was.
I'm saying that opinions on other people's names are likely to offend actual real people.
If anyone reading this is just absolutely crushed that I think that they gave their kid a silly spelling of their name, then by all means they should speak up. But I'm wondering why someone who doesn't even have a kid named Maddicyn is so invested in this.
A good friend of mine from college gave his daughters words like "Danger" and "Perseverance" for middle names.
215: The "I message" is usually implied in this sort of context, right?
219: Because, as I've said, I think it's rude, and I think it's representative of a larger cultural tendency to pass snippy judgment on parents for all sorts of petty and meaningless issues. I also find it kinda smug to find difference per se risible.
so have I got the summary correct?
unusual names: good
goofy spellings of conventional names: really bad idea but don't tell anyone lest you add yet another burden to their godforsaken suburban waspy lives.
or did i miss something?
220: All rules I may have stated previously are dropped if you give your kid "Danger" as a middle name. It will either be incredibly cool or incredibly funny, depending on how well the kid rolls with it. Either way, as the parent, you win.
Keep in mind, this is being said by a woman who named her son Mulva.
"I want him to always remember where he came from."
Fuck this name shit: here's something we can all get behind.
223: Parents aren't special that way, though. people pass snippy judgements on everything.
219: I think the point is that parents (mostly moms, I suppose) have to put up with alot of shit over ever last piddling parenting decision they make. It gets tiresome.
153: Hmmm. Have you thought seriously about the commitment you are making to your wedding party? Are you sure this is truly the maid-of-honor for you? I took the husband's name and, lo and behold, it did not lend any talismanic permanence to the marriage. A rose by any other name and all that jazz.
Of course, the point in 181 that it'll be easier to trace if you keep it raises many additional considerations -- how easily *do* you want it to be to trace you?
227: Yes they do, and I'll go to bat for underdogs over other people's snippy judgments most of the time.
Nonetheless, names are personal, and parents do give an awful lot of thought to naming children. I mean fine, you think someone else chooses a stupid or awful name. Saying so is likely to cause offense. This really shouldn't surprise people.
229: It's my sister. This was a couple months ago, and she's since apologized, but now that I'm actually starting to have to think about applying for a marriage license, I don't know what to so. [whimper]
229.2: I've probably told this story before, but whatever. Funny anecdote ala Cala's maid of honor's snit-fit over last names--the florist who argued with my saying that Mr. B. did not wish to wear a boutonnière by asking, "but then how will people know who the groom is"?
Symbols matter, but they're not as important as the things they actually stand for.
215: And all of my comments have been loaded with "I messages." Hasn't stopped you from going after me like a rabid terrier, though.
God, Cala, you really have my sympathy. Your family's issues w/ marriage/weddings sound really frustrating to have to deal with.
230: names are personal, and parents do give an awful lot of thought to naming children
Seriously, the French idea of letting birth registrars challenge names likely to expose a child to mockery or worse isn't terrible. Leaves room for vivacious formulations like "Moxie CrimeFighter" while sparing children potential atrocities like "Aryan Justice."
234: I'm not going after you. You took my comment about middle class norms personally and have been snippy ever since.
My friend Wu Ming was a little surprised to find that the name on his checks and bank account was Wu Ming Ming Wu.
My family's generally been pretty good compared to some horror stories I hear, but I think doctors should be allow to prescribe tranquilizers upon the announcment of engagements. Would make everyone's life easier.
237: Damn right I've been snippy. You've repeatedly directed classism insinuations at my comments, you've ignored that pretty much everything I've said has been phrased in "I" statements and you've implied that I'd actually tell an actual child that his or her name was stupid.
Please either own what you're saying or apologize for it. I'm tired of the veiled insults.
Jill's post is very good. One valuable thing about comments like the ones at AutoAdmit and many other places is that they manifest the behaviors, like wolf-whistling and other forms of harassment, which I believe in but rarely experience or at least notice. The undertone, ready to break out at any time, which Alameida's post yesterday, and the many comments which picked up on it talked about. See for yourself.
232: Write an assortment of names on bits of paper and pick one out of a hat. To spring off B's comment in 233, the names y'all go with isn't as important as the people they stand for. If you're dealing with INS or CIS or whatever it's called these days, you have far, far more headaches to deal with and don't need to let this one make you crazy.
I have a cousin named Uten/sia. One of my uncles who doesn't especially like her calls her "Old Spoon" behind her back.
Yay.
230: For whatever its worth, when I found out PK's actual name, I thought it suited perfectly the sweet mouse-lover that his mom writes about.
I agree with Magpie.
I'm uncomfortable sending people signals that say "I don't care about your opinion". By living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and naming my son Diva Muffin, I would be sending that signal to virtually everyone he ever runs across. And for what?
It'd be like that bit on the Colbert Report about naming America's Newest War. We'll end up with Bunny Cala-Shiv.
I have a much younger brother who is only slightly older than my oldest child. When my second child was hatching, my brother decided to call him "Museum."
The name stuck for the first 2 years of my son's life.
228: Ciolli just wants to be left alone. Priceless.
"230: For whatever its worth, when I found out PK's actual name, I thought it suited perfectly the sweet mouse-lover that his mom writes about."
BitchPhd's kid is named "Hannibal?"
Mitt Romney's oldest son is named "Tagg." As far as I've been able to tell, it's not short for anything.
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/08/23/yourhighness-morgan/
249: I actually know a kid named after Vladimir Tepes.
Magpie, Bitch? Looking back over the thread, I don't believe either of you meant to be hostile to the other intially, rather than disagreeing about naming. Might this not be a good moment to join hands and sing Kumbuyah, or however you spell the damn song?
243: Now I'm worried you're my cousin!
A solution to being ultra-stressed is to be terribly practical.
1. Which order to put the names in? Well, does alphabetization matter? My father felt strongly that he enjoyed being near the beginning of the alphabet for roll calls all his life. Some people couldn't care less. Is there a way that is likely to generate more obnoxious tittering from peers? Sure, kids can grow a tough skin, but why put them through needless hassle?
2. What's your personality like? Do you mind spelling your name over and over, slowly and clearly? Some people hate that; some find it a fun conversation piece.
2. To hyphenate or not? Many credit-card companies still can't handle more than 16 characters. If you want to simplify the credit checks, buying a house, etc. etc., think twice about combining two long-ish last names.
249: It's actually "Lennie Small".
A Brief Exchange by Instant Message
ME: i might have to start calling you "old spoon".
SNARKOUT: That's fair enough, Museum.
250 - I had a boss named Tad/gh, which is apparently a variant spelling of Tadhg ("Teague"). I assume Mitt is just following the "Irishoid name" trend of the late '90s that resulted in a trillion Connors and Logans.
254: Aw, why you gotta go break up the catfight?
255: My real name is unusual and old-fashioned, but it's no "Utensia".
My former mayor and state senator is named Wib Gulley. He has a brother named Dub Gulley.
245: I don't think it's necessarily such a bad thing to send a message to Council Bluffs (but mostly your son) that you make choices based on your own judgment, not by following the judgment of the herd. Short of naming your son IhateCouncilBluffs Ned, though, I don't see that the name you choose for your son sends any message at all to the community. What you name him should be about him, no one else. And if the community takes your child's name personally, it's a rather narcissistic community.
Parents pick names that are meaningful to them for whatever reason. If you like conventional names, great. Name your kid something conventional. I basically did. If you want to pick something unique or quirky or cryptic or whatever, that's good too. I just don't see why anyone other than the parents is entitled to an opinion about a child's name.
Oops, sorry about the failure to googleproof Ute/nsia.
Ut/ensia: A land in the north of the Quadling Country that is inhabited by utensils. Colender is the high priest because he is the holiest in the kingdom, the Sifter if the judge, and the Corkscrew is the lawyer. Dorothy, Toto, and Billina wander away from the rest of their party, get lost in the woods, and encounter this utilitarian land.
And for what?
Possibly because you don't care about their opinion? If I met someone named "Diva Muffin," I'd laugh at first probably, commiserate with them if they disliked their name, and be hugely delighted if they liked to be called "Diva" or "Muffin" for short. Kids aren't pets, true, and parents shouldn't give kids names just for kicks, but satisfying Mrs. Grundy ain't what it's all about either.
Besides, you aren't your name. Anyone who really hates their name can change it pretty easily.
(I don't feel sorry for that Anthony guy.)
I just don't see why anyone other than the parents is entitled to an opinion about a child's name.
Because being catty about other people's aesthetic judgment is a joy forever?
263: Is it an opinion about the childs name, or the parent? I can't imagine a situation where I'd call someone on it, but naming you kid a goofy variant spelling of a conventional name sends an odd message. Doesn't say anything about the kid, of course.
Colender is the high priest
I suppose his parents thought that spelling would distinguish him from all the "Colander"s in his class.
if they liked to be called "Diva" or "Muffin" for short
Today, they would get called D-Muff.
268: It's an opinion about the parent, of course.
Colender's name should be hyphenated.
268: See, that's where I'm inclined to disagree. I mean, sure, there may well be people out there who choose their child's name with the hopes of getting a particular reaction. But by and large I think that if you really believe a parent is trying to send you a message in naming their child, you are probably grossly overestimating your significance.
Unless of course you slept with the mother roughly 9 months prior to the birth and she names the child after you. Then she probably is trying to send you a message.
("You" in the generic sense, i.e. "one," not "you soubrizquet.")
Not hyphenated, periodized. Col. Ender.
See, that would also send a message about the parent.
"Besides, you aren't your name. Anyone who really hates their name can change it pretty easily."
Someone once asked me to change her name to her two cat's names. I made her think about it for a week.
I also convinced someone to change her middle name to Pocahontas. Then, I convinced her it was really a bad idea.
FYI, I'll change any Virginian's name here to "Unfogged" for free.
121: When I told my parents that I had a friend named Siobhan, they assumed she was black. And immediately lapsed into that awful white-people-making-fun-of-black-people voice they use when ever uttering a "black sounding" name. I hate the south. (although, I guiltily admit to laughing at a certain family of jokes along the lines of, "What do you call a girl who's half black, half jewish: Knisha," etc.)
I like first names that sound like last names. One of the only nice things I have to say about the Marsalis family.
I know a couple who changed both of their names to the wife's mother's maiden name. The wife's name was already hyphenated and foreign with funny spelling, and it made things much easier. The groom's family was really unhappy about it though.
FYI, I'll change any Virginian's name here to "Unfogged" for free.
I'll sweeten the deal and give you five bucks if you change Jerry Falwell's name to "Gayatollah Abu Labs".
273: I dunno. I guess the problem is that I can't come up with a single positive reason for intentionally misspelling a common name. What are you thinking when you do that? So it genuinely puzzles me (but that's not the only popular-ish thing that people do which puzzles me). I certainly wouldn't think it tells much about you, but it isn't content-free.
Unusal names though, are great.
271: Right. And that's where it bugs me. Like the name, don't like the name, it's all aesthetics. But judging a parent for choosing a name you don't like is just kind of mean.
Of course, I need their consent. But "Cryptic Ned" would be a really cool name.
Because being catty about other people's aesthetic judgment is a joy forever?
Of course. And being catty about other people's judgments about other people's judgments is, too.
naming you kid a goofy variant spelling of a conventional name sends an odd message.
"I think this spelling of the name looks pretty."
I don't necessarily expect people to be able to pronounce 'Siobhan' (though I'm mildly surprised by well-read people who claim never to have encountered it before)
One can encounter it in books plenty of times without having any idea how to pronounce it. Of course, figuring out how to pronounce it is not hard, with all the internets and baby name books nowadays.
The answer is to change the spelling to "ShaVaughnne".
Gorgonzola would also be a good name for a cat.
278: I'm guessing it's pure esthetics -- people mess with spelling because they think it looks pretty. Which doesn't seem all that odd to me.
"It's Mindi, with two i's," she replied cheerfully. She'd thought the alternate spelling would help people remember her.
279: but it isn't the *name*. Or at least, it wasn't in what I was talking about. It's choosing to make up a goofy variant spelling of the name afterward.
Huh, I missed quite a thread.
1. Cala, and women generally, shouldn't change their names.
2. It's totally fine to make fun of other people's parenting decisions, particularly B's.
3. A person's first-last name combination should be unique in all the world.
4. I hate you all.
285: hmmmmm. well that saves us then, because mocking peoples sense of aesthetics is a venerable passtime.
And immediately lapsed into that awful white-people-making-fun-of-black-people voice they use when ever uttering a "black sounding" name. I hate the south.
That happens everywhere the US, not just the south. But it is horrible.
288.3: Lucky I'm not single. While there may have been more frequently repeated first/last name combinations than mine, there can't have been many.
This ear worm is haunting me all day; I am going to bequeath it to you if you feel like clicking here. A lovely song and totally unobjectionable earworm material. But if you don't feel like humming it for the rest of the day don't click.
I'll bring you fat juicy worms
I'll bring you millipedes
Open your beak and close your eyes
We're gonna live in the trees
We're gonna live in the trees
But you were single once, with your bodice-ripper name, and you may not have often run into another one. I, on the other hand, with a much less common name, am often contacted regarding the others with that name.
bodice-ripper name
?
It was dull and often repeated, but not particularly romance-novely. I don't think, anyway.
I do admit that I never met another one face to face.
291 - LB's real name is Mohammed Chang.
A met a kid who shared my first name once. God, I was so angry.
288.3: Lucky I'm not single. While there may have been more frequently repeated first/last name combinations than mine, there can't have been many.
Yeah, both my first and last are so common, people have accused me of using a pseudonym.
My cousin has my name. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The only oddly-named celebrity child to reject their name in favor of something 'normal', that I know of, is Duncan Jones, born Zowie Bowie.
297 -- I always assumed your real name was Tijuana. No?
276, 282: We live in one of the rare PDX neighborhoods where you can find both people of whiteness and people of color. So when someone asked me what we were naming the girls, and I told her Maura and Siobhan, she said, wow, Siobhan, how perfect for the 'hood. I assume she was imagining the 'ShaVaughnne' spelling.
Oh, in response to 218, my guesses are "Retardo" and "Hitler".
283: Better for a cat than for a girl. You could always count on a cat to earn "Gorgon" as a short form, but not so good for Daddy's Little Princess.
291: That's exactly why the couple I mentioned both changed their names - if the woman had taken his name, she would have had (in her view) the most common, waspy name she could imagine, and she wasn't down with that.
293: I don't know about bodice-ripper names, but Tagg Romney is definitely a gay porn name.
For the longest time, I thought Siobhan was pronounced SHO-vun. Unfortunately, the result of this is that I can't quite get over thinking that the el-wrongo pronunciation is lovely and the el-righto one is defective in some way. I'm broken.
I think I've mentioned before that exbeforelast's sister's daugher is named Aloha. It's pretty awesome, actually. Their son is named T. Rex.
I've always thought "Tag Heuer" was a misspelling.
?
That's what it sounds like to me, probably pirate associations, both the first and the last name.
I was disconcerted when, as a teenager, I met a kid with my name. I remember thinking, since he was with friends, that I'd embarass him. Low self-esteem.
296: Imagine my suffering. When I was born, my name was (apparently) so unusual that my mother still congratulates herself for her bravery. I never met a single other one until college. It is now, and has been for a good 10 years, one of the top 10 most common male names.
299: I did not know that. How sad. And what a dumbass.
A friend just changed her name to her husband's name, two years after they got married, but the day after they both finished their law school exams.
Her name is going from a very common one-syllable English name to a four-syllable German name. It'll probably be misspelled much less often now.
My name's shared widely. But I once had an housemate named Vijay Patel and though it might not be apparent when you grow up in North Carolina, there are a crazy lot of Vijay Patels in the world. Lots more than have my name. I've met two more since then, all here in town, where there really isn't a big Indian community.
I knew a woman who'd changed from her common one-syllable Anglo name to her husband's African name, which wasn't pronounced at all like it was spelled. She was slightly miffed about it.
311: I knew a guy in college whose first name was Rancher.
I hope his last name was "Jolly".
312: That's an odd effect too ---- I once had a girlfriend with an ethnically Hawaiian name. Until she was about 8, she'd never heard it anywhere else, and got used to people saying `what an unusal name'. Until she went to Hawaii to visit family, and found out it was sort of the equivalent of `Mary'.
This scientist has one of my favorite hyphenated names. You can tell more about her life story from her name than you can with most people.
298: My family recycles names a lot, so first-last combinations tend to recur through the generations and are sometimes shared by cousins. My wife and I had kind of a huge tussle over the naming thing -- she'd come up with something that seemed random to me, and I'd counter by reaching up my mother's family tree for Fortunata, Assunta, Incoronata, that sort of thing, just to be stubborn. I'm perfectly happy with what we chose, but she basically won, because it turns out that being massively pregnant and hormonally imbalanced can give a person a real edge in that kind of negotiation.
316: The 73rd most popular name in Hawaii, then?
I've always like Lavernaeus Coles' name, because it suggests his parents just loved the name Laverne so much that they had to find a masculine version.
Er, I thought that link in 319 would link to the thing where you type in a name and it tells you how popular it's been. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
I've seen Lavergne as a man's name.
It's spelled Laveranues, which is just sad, or cool, or both, depending.
317: If you hyphenate an Asian name with a European one, do you have to start putting the family name last?
For some reason *Pan-Hammarström Qiang sounds very wrong to me, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps just because hyphenating at all is a Western thing, and doesn't combine well with Asian name order.
I knew a guy in college with the surname "Traute". His name is Brooke, so of course his daughter is Rainbow.
317: Let's not forget this scientist.
I've always been particular to Robert Hanbury Brown, of the Hanbury Brown Twiss effect. Hyphenate anywhere at your peril!
and then there's apo's favorite scientist.
325: There's a family around here named Fir, so naturally they named their sons Douglas and Noble.
Florida State had a wide receiver named Kez McCorvey, which I always thought was a great name. I don't know if Kez was short for anything in particular, but I came perilously close to naming a kid Kezzek.
321: That was interesting. Looks like my mother was right. She anticipated the great [my real name] craze by about a decade.
329: And then there are the unfortunate cross-cultural ones. I went to grade school with the children of a recently immigrated Dick (or Dicke, i forget which) family. Their daughter were Ura and Ina, or close enough to not make any difference to 8 year olds.
I named my dog for a Samoan goddess to keep myself from inflicting it on a kid. Now no one can pronounce the dog's name.
Cala, can you tell Immigration you're changing your name to his and then just "never get around to" putting all the paperwork through? How long would you have to be married before Shivbunny would be free and clear?
I'd be inclined not to change my name, though if I did change it, I'd finally be shut of my petty-criminal doppelganger.
They'll use our marriage certificate to grant him his greencard, so, no, unfortunately.
Another problem with a super common first, middle, and surname: I'm hard to locate in academic journals. Fun! Am I this one, who studies jellyfish? Am I the astronomer? The petrochemist? You'll never knowhire me!
I have a cousin whose very young step-kids are named the same as my mother and myself so every Thanksgiving I turn around to wonder who the hell is addressing me/my mom in baby talk.
Rah and I (OK, not really Rah, just I) came perilously close to naming one cat Hookers and the other cat Blow.
Unrelatedly, should I be mad at my very close friend and his girlfriend who, upon my moving out and having the house to themselves, got a dog, and gave it the same (very uncommon) name as the definitive ex of mine, who they know caused me great agitation and who I don't like to be reminded of?
Because I kind of am.
Florida State had a wide receiver named Kez McCorvey...
Maybe his parents were devoted but sloppy Ken Loach fans.
332: Okay, I don't believe this one.
336: My PI has an extremely common first and last name, and refuses to use his middle initial. It's very annoying on PubMed.
Is the dog female? Inappropriate though it may be, you could perhaps work a cocktail-party joke out of saying they assigned that name to the very next bitch to enter their home.
338.---Um, yes. You should also ask them what the fuck they were thinking, and not accept the explanation that it was a joke.
SOT, but God Shammgod was actually the third generation to bear that name. He grew up in a family of the 5% Nation of Islam, which is fascinating stuff.
Here's a guy who uses the same name.
The bitch reference was first to my mind as well.
cerebrocrat: cross my heart. first heard it on an announcement calling them to main office. They weren't in my year; so I can't remember the exact spelling (and this was *cough* years ago) Close enough to make it a running joke for a week, at least. I should ask my sister, she was in the same year as one of them.
333: Similar situation -- named one of my cats after an Estonian composer whose name most people apparently find unpronounceable.
My current favorite sports name is Craphonso Thorpe, which is sublime if you don't think about the abuse he took growing up. Then again, he became an NFL player, so he probably could just kick some ass.
Also, my middle school principal was named Di/ck Wein/er.
If you're going to give your kid a name like Craphonso, you'd best be a person who can determine reliably that your kid will have some sports skills. If Craphonso grows up to play D&D instead of football, he'll have a hard life.
Cala, are you sure Immigration cares whether you keep your name? I mean, it's common enough nowadays that I wouldn't think they would treat this as some red flag that you're scamming the system or something.
My memory from ages ago is that they had a nice helpline somewhere in Kansas that was hard to get through to, but once you got to a live human being they were really quite friendly and helpful. Honestly.
Someone pointed out that the current CEO of Radio Shack is named Julian Day (as here or here).
I agree that it's strange. A mutual friend and I were chatting, and I mentioned that I had heard about the new dog from another mutual friend and he was all "Ohhhh, so you found out about that," implying that they knew I'd be irritated.
My suspicion is that the close friend's girlfriend (who postdates my ex) had a real hard-on for the name (found in acronym form here) and he figured he'd pick his battles, given that the grief he would get from her (in the same house) would be less than the grief he would ever get from me, now a full continent away.
I still plan on shunning the bitch.
340, this woman laughs at your skepticism from beyond the grave.
350: I don't think they care much, though a friend who married a furriner has cited it as a reason for changing her name. After all, contra my sister, it's not a global custom that the woman always changes her name. But it might throw a flag, and I'm terrified of getting an interview where they separate us and grill us about questions about where the other person keeps their socks because I'm not sure most days I can answer that about myself.
Cala, I don't want to overestimate the competence and compassion of our dear immigration services, but I think that it's pretty rare for legitimate relationships to be flagged as fraudulent.
Yeah, I know. False positives are pretty rare, though sometimes the U.S. citizen will be in denial that their relationship is fraudulent. The Internet is a weird lonely hearts' club sometimes.
I just really want to shriek that his country is practically America Jr., and I really shouldn't have to do all the stupid paperwork in the first place.
348: I would have insisted that everybody call me Richard.
Also, Siobhan is the most eye-pretty name I know of. Just reading it makes me want to ask the bearer out on a date without having met them or seen a picture or anything.
I started using my full first name (Nathaniel) instead of 'Nate' after making some major life changes in my early 20s. It's not a rare name, but I'm terribly fond of it; IMHO, 'iel' is a great phoneme. And now all my housemates can tell if it's my parents or siblings on the phone for me, 'cause they're the only people that call me 'Nate'.
Cala, when I did this way back in the 90's, they just pretty much looked at both of us, asked to see the marriage certificate, and sent us on our way. Of course, it probably helped that I had a baby in my arms. You could work on that, just to be safe....
350+ comments and no one's mentioned Hen3ry or linked this?
Siobhan is the most eye-pretty name I know of. Just reading it makes me want to ask the bearer out on a date without having met them or seen a picture or anything.
My four-year-old daughter wouldn't know what the hell you were asking, Nathaniel, and her daddy would be obliged to fuck your shit up.
361. I loves me some Despair, Inc.
358: Well, he tried. He really tried hard to go by Richard. Unfortunately, he's a middle school principal with the name Richard Weiner. He never stood a chance.
174: She's evidently changing it legally, not merely adopting a nickname. I do hope we won't see her doing commando cartwheels.
204: I'll tell you who else's computer systems are in the fucking dark ages: I discovered that, after 17 years of filing joint returns, Social Security had credited nada, nothing, zip, zero to my account. [In fact, someone there had changed my last name - they claim I did it, but I did not, and it suspiciously occurred after several years of marriage, when we moved to CA.] It seems they have difficulty cross-referencing...
My son, who has a plethora of names, had to truncate one of them in order to fit into the Social Security computer form's available space. I wonder what people who follow Spanish custom do when the gummint has issues with Constancia García Ramírez del Rey de Arroyo y López.
Plus, in fairness, what kind of sadistic parent names their kid Richard if their last name is Weiner? Is that any worse than naming your kid Craphonso? Particularly when neither of the parents is remotely possible of producing offspring with NFL-caliber speed/nunchuck fighting skills?
the name (found in acronym form here)
Wait, is the dog a she-wolf?
And what about people who give their children names like Miles Long and Cherry Poppens? Is it any wonder these kids grow up to be porn stars?
There was a guy on the Canadian World Baseball Classic team named Stubby Clapp. Even worse, his wife was named Chastity Clapp. Granted her parents couldn't have planned for that, but she's sitting on the greatest porn name of all time. Either that, or she's the embodiment of Southern abstinence-only education.
Wait, is the dog a she-wolf?
Excuse me while I go gouge my eyes out. Amusing Nazploitation flicks, ruined for me forever. It didn't help that said ex turned me on to them.
You know, all my friend would have had to have done was to pronounce/spell the dog's name like Rick's lady in Casablanca, and I would have been fine, but they didn't.
I just really want to shriek that his country is practically America Jr.
That'll make you popular with his countrymen.
230: parents do give an awful lot of thought to naming children.
Not all; a friend of mine, whilst working at an employment agency, surprised an applicant by pronouncing her name correctly, which she knew because it was also my name. Turns out the applicant's mother spent 36 hours in labour, with nothing to read but a Bible. She ran across the name and decided, what the hell, if it's a girl I'll name it that. [And if you think it's easy going through life as Bashemath Puah, you've got another think coming...]
368: I had a friend in college named Penelope Weiss. She was known as "Nell". If you called her "Penny", she would rip out your tongue.
names like Miles Long and Cherry Poppens?
There was a young lady who went to my high school (though with my younger brother, not me) named—I kid you not—Happy Hussey.
375: Considering his family thinks that it's sort of ridiculous that he can spend six months here but needs a visa to enter and marry, I don't think they'll be too offended.
371: why not; always a use for easy joke fodder like that...
Plus, in fairness, what kind of sadistic parent names their kid Richard if their last name is Weiner?
He married into the name. They were very progressive for their time.
He married into the name.
And then went to work in middle schools? He's a fucking masochist.
More likely he married into it while working at the middle school.
We all thought he was as queer as the middle school day is long. Then he got married to an elementary school teacher. Doesn't mean he isn't a masochist. Or that he won't declare himself a gay American principal, divorce his wife and become an Episcopal priest. Clearly, the only thing more masochistic than being Principal Dick Weiner is becoming the Reverend Dick Weiner, which, if I'm not mistaken, was FL's nickname in high school.
Episcopal, eh? He could become Rector Dick Weiner, Primate of All Fire Island.
Long thread, but can I just point out that Siobhan, here, is normally pronounced not with an 'a' sound -- see ShaVaughnne, above -- but with a very short 'u' or 'i' sound. /ʃɪvɔʰːn/ or /ʃʌvɔʰːn/.
But really, the first vowel is almost elided.
[This has been a trivial nitpicking comment]
For some reason *Pan-Hammarström Qiang sounds very wrong to me
I beg to differ. It's great. He sounds like someone who lives in a fabulous modern house in Sweden of the sort that I will never be rich or beautiful enough to own, the smug bastard.
He could become Rector Dick Weiner, Primate of All Fire Island.
He deserves his own Bishopric.
There are people, living right here in the U.S. of A., named "W/nsome Cox". Google it.
383: Here too, and I'm guessing the same is true of Shavaughne. We really need not just to bring back the schwa, but to elevate it to equal status with the rest of the vowels.
Incidentally, I recommend checking out what I assume is an anti-plagiarism warning at the top of Shavaughne Qua/ttlebaum's myspace page.
I beg to differ. It's great. He sounds like someone who lives in a fabulous modern house in Sweden of the sort that I will never be rich or beautiful enough to own, the smug bastard.
Getting multiple papers in Nature GeneticS and Journal of Experimental Medicine is pretty special, but it won't make you independently wealthy.
What I really meant in 17 is that when you see citations of a paper with 8 or so authors, two of whom are named "Lennart Hammarström" and "Qiang Pan-Hammarström", your mind drifts into directions that you don't normally experience when looking at J. Exp. Med, perhaps getting all sentimental imagining how two immunologists from opposite sides of the planet found love.
re: 386
yeah, I suppose a schwa would be a better choice than /ɪ/ in a transcription of some people's pronunciation.
We had a middle-school teacher named R/ichard D/yke. And he went by Dick. Such cognitive dissonance.
Such cognitive dissonance
He did not by any chance have a middle name "Van", did he?
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