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Snarky advice on how to name things

Making fun of poorly chosen names for babies and consulting firms.

Q: My husband wants Elijah Haakon. I want Legend Haakon. What do you guys think?
A: I feel like haaking. You know a kid named Legend will be bland and unaccomplished, just like girls named Charity are selfish, Faiths are atheists, Chastitys are bimbos and Hopes are suicidal. And if you're going to name a kid after a Tom Cruise movie THAT unapproachably bad, name 'em Cocktail.

Q: What about Jackie-O for a girl or Sinead?
A: Tough call. It all hinges on what hairdo you were planning.

"The most popular associations with the name marchFIRST were `military' and `marching without thinking.'" It's small wonder that the company blew through several hundreds of millions of dollars and within a year was so cash-strapped that it couldn't mail W-2s to laid-off employees.

See also the infamous Utah Baby Names site. Via Reenhead and The Morning News.

I am not selfish. ;)

Glad to hear it! Note that I was just quoting notwithoutmyhandbag.com; I personally know a woman who renamed herself "Charity" on her 50th birthday as a reminder to cut those around her a little more slack, and it seems to have worked.

Thanks for surfing by.

My mother always gives the example of a girl she was at school with in Manchester called "Desire'e Smith", but she is not immune - she says she still wishes she had named my three sisters Faith, Hope, and Charity - claiming to have known there would be three girls to thus name.

I spoke on the phone in London once to a very articulate and thoughtful environmental activist who had changed his name to "Perry 6". I asked how to spell the surname and he said "just the number". And in Budapest in the early 90s an amiable poet turned up at one of my parties saying his name was "ozone", spelled of course as "O3".

So those folks did it to themselves. I think silly names are a terrible thing to do to a child, but that governments stopping you {Hungary! France!} from giving your child weird names is far far worse.

And uniquely strange-sounding names are harder to think up than everyone thinks: for example I still reckon that the two most distinctive and rock-and-roll names in rock and roll are Mick Jagger and Frank Zappa - both natural family names. All those invented names, and I think no-one managed better than either of those two.

Isn't that odd?

Interesting point about Jagger and Zappa! I'd never thought of that.

I happen to believe -- and I think I'm qualified to have an opinion on this one -- that an unusual name breeds character. It reinforces the idea from an early age that you're unique in the world. (It also helps people find you on the Internet. As far as I can tell, I'm still the only Prentiss Riddle out there -- certainly the only Prentiss Arol Sumner Riddle.)

I managed to get my wife to agree before our daughters were born that if we had triplet boys, we'd name them Mingus, Monk (Thelonius on the birth certificate) and Miles.

I think if a girl Adira Lior(strong light) is nice.

Remember that bit in "LA Story" when Steve Martin gets Sarah Jessica Parker's name, and she tells him it's "Sarah" and he's relieved that she has a normal name and then he asks her how to spell it and it's like "Little S big A backwards R, big star..."

Or something.

And that was a run on sentence.
Sorry, it's late.

I think sometimes people exaggerate the problems with "unusual" names in terms of being mocked, when the fact of the matter is that you'll get mocked no matter what. My name, Dagny, is fairly unusual (at least in the US) but caused me less problems than some people have expressed with normal names. A friend of mine, for example, has the last name of "Tucker," which has an unfortunate and often-exploited rhyme which probably caused more difficulties.

My main problem has been with having a last name (Scott) that's more recognizable as a first name than my first name, but not usable because its gender is incorrect.

i m sanjay ramani. i want the address of the site which can give the name of child.

i want to keep the very nice name of my baby. i am searching for her name
please gide me .how can i get the good name ?

Sanjay, am I correct that you are of (Hindu) Indian background? If so, do a Google search for Hindu baby names and you'll find a zillion guides for just that purpose.

Although browsing a Sanskrit dictionary may work just as well.

Also a Dagny here, and with a "Lily" last name I get calls for a Lilley Dagny all the time. Blasted normal people with their normal names!

Just wanted to add my name to the rest of the Charity's on this page, the name has worked well for me. I don't have a middle name, my parents said nothing went with it!

please suggest me names of baby boy starting from "TH" with meanings.
Thanking you.