Comments on: The worst unusual baby names of 2012 in one place so you can forget them more easily

By: Vincenzo Ravina

Vincenzo Ravina — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 07:03:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of unusual names.

By: Vincenzo Ravina

Vincenzo Ravina — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 07:01:00 +0000

Truth.

By: Heather Cristofaro

Heather Cristofaro — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:51:00 +0000

My boyfriend’s last name is “Jones”, which means we can never have children because the temptation would be too great not to name him/her Indiana and be the worst parents ever…

By: IronEdithKidd

IronEdithKidd — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:23:00 +0000

“Igor”

You lived somewhere that a lot of Russians emigrated to. Not weird at all. Fatima isn’t weird, either.

Electron, OTOH, is very odd.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Some of those names are pretty bad, and this comes from a guy whose daughter is named “Pixel”.

By: giantasterisk

giantasterisk — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:40:00 +0000

I kind of like California. Shortens to Cali, which is rather cute.

By: giantasterisk

giantasterisk — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:33:00 +0000

Me, too. They just loved the dog’s name so much…

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:50:00 +0000

Smoke me a kipper…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=gXYfnWRp1Q0

By: howaboutthisdangit

howaboutthisdangit — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:31:00 +0000

It’s easier to spell than ” Romanadvoratrelundar”.

By: Chentzilla

Chentzilla — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:22:00 +0000

Isn’t your name spoken more often by the people around you than by yourself, though? So it actually makes sense that they name you?

By: Chentzilla

Chentzilla — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:16:00 +0000

To the whole country?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:00 +0000

The one that I knew had parents who were physicists. His siblings were named Proton and Neutron, I think.

By: Lodewijk Gonggrijp

Lodewijk Gonggrijp — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:27:00 +0000

I would have killed to be named Ace. And who says daddy doesn’t want his girl to become a fighter pilot ?

By: Ashen Victor

Ashen Victor — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:40:00 +0000

Electron is an awesome name if you plan your son/daughter to become an atomic supervillain.

By: ashypete

ashypete — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:28:00 +0000

An acquaintance of mine is a birthing professional and the craziest name she heard this year (I kid you not): Fungi. The parents call their young boy “Fun” for short.

By: Aloisius

Aloisius — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:04:00 +0000

Bet if you named her Gertrude or Mabel, she also would have been the only one in her kindergarten class.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:47:00 +0000

Telamonian or Locrian? Or from Toby Tyler ?

By: Pirate Jenny

Pirate Jenny — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:40:00 +0000

My cousin and his wife named their son Ajax. I chuckled a little at the time, but it’s grown on me.

By: Kroeghe

Kroeghe — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:35:00 +0000

I fail to see how this is funny. Shouldn’t we celebrate diversity rather than mock it?

By: feetleet

feetleet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:26:00 +0000

I like ‘Townes,’ for either sex. It says kill the sheriff, fuck the south, marry Texas. And I don’t know, civilization, or something.

Umami, if I think the lil’ cherub might aspire to porn. A father just knows. Eat your heart out, Ummi.

By: feetleet

feetleet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:15:00 +0000

Longinus?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:47:00 +0000

I’ve worked with people named, just off the top of my head, Ofelia, Procula, Bruncelia, Nubia, Vassilissa, Igor, Electron, Fatima… It’s called living in San Francisco.

By: LinkMan

LinkMan — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:47:00 +0000

True. If I hadn’t lose my Pedant’s Handbook yesterday I would have clarified that it’s pronounced something close to kai-sheen.

But can you think of a better way to explain it to English speakers with no prior exposure to Mandarin phonemes, given that the palatal pinyin “x” (vs. the retroflex pinyin “sh”) doesn’t exist in English?

Saying “it sounds like kai-sheen,” is going to give the average English speaker a heck of a lot better idea of what the name sounds like than just showing them “kaixin.” I’ll bet well over 90% of English speakers who haven’t taken a class in Chinese will think that “kaixin” rhymes with “Ma fixin’” (as in, “Ma is fixin’ dinner tonight”) or something like that.

By: Gyrofrog

Gyrofrog — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:40:00 +0000

When my wife and I were expecting our son, I submitted “Zoot” as a possible name. She wasn’t having it. I still have my list somewhere.

I once worked with an Aquanetta, though she went by Netta.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:38:00 +0000

Wouldn’t you say that he doesn’t form bonds?

By: Gyrofrog

Gyrofrog — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Form SS-5 is that-a-way. (By the way, they have their own list of popular baby names .)

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:30:00 +0000

The no eye contact thing, maybe he was autistic and he was born into such a high social standing nobody noticed?

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Of all the names only ‘ Donathan’ made me groan. It just seems so mormon-y to me.

By: Gyrofrog

Gyrofrog — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:23:00 +0000

Many years ago my family received a Christmas photo depicting two parents, a young boy, and a dog. It was captioned “Merry Christmas from [the Dad], [the Mom], Porter, and Parker.”

The following year we received a new Christmas photo from the same family. This time it had two parents, the young boy, a baby boy, and the dog. The caption still read “Merry Christmas from [the Dad], [the Mom], Porter, and Parker.”

By: Nagurski

Nagurski — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:20:00 +0000

’xi’ and ‘sh’ are distinct phonemes in pinyin rendering. Pronouncing 心 as “sheen” doesn’t cut it.