Re: Let us be clear: I am a big, fat jerk.

1

Heebbie et al, please be assured I am down with UPP
(Unconventional Progeny Pseudonyms).


Posted by: Econolicious, down with UPP | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 6:52 PM
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Niephew?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 6:54 PM
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Couldn't one of the grandmothers maybe say something?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:02 PM
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"A big fat jerk" is, admittedly, a very troublesome name. I would probably bring myself to say something to the prospective parents in that case. Otherwise I wouldn't worry much.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:07 PM
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Really, I find myself more inclined to think unkind thoughts of the conventional and _utterly_uncreative_ practice of naming juniors and IIIs and so forth. Indeed, a grave concern about becoming seriously involved with a junior, if one is serious enough to contemplate procreation, is what if he thinks I would be willing to give my son his name? Because (I would do anything for love but) I won't do that.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:26 PM
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It does seem like going through life named Apple would be kind of tough, Di.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:35 PM
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But not as bad as Apple III, you have to admit.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:51 PM
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My favorite niece has a UPN, and it doesn't appear to bother her at all. I think the key to a good UPN is how well it lends itself to a good nickname.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 7:59 PM
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7: So kid gets called Trey or a variation on the older one's name. Really, having known several perfectly fine people with numbers attached to their names, it's not a problem for them or the people around them. Think "josiah" morphing to "jay", "Siah" and then "Sy".


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 8:01 PM
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Even if you have a name that sounds conventional, you have to worry that the convention will change. A bunch of people in the 1920s named their kid "Adolf" thinking nothing of it. Or in the 90s, think of all the kids named "Goatse." How were their parents to know?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 8:07 PM
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2: That would be seriously uncouth of me, wouldn't it?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 8:08 PM
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9: No doubt Jo, Siah, and Sy are ever bit as lovely as my niece, Apple. As an aesthetic preference, I like UPNs better than sequels.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 8:15 PM
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One of the people most beloved to me ever named their child Lubbock. This was difficult for me to reconcile.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 8:34 PM
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Other cities in Texas might be worse. But "Houston, we have a problem" would be a great punchline for jokes about impotence, breaking condoms, and premature ejaculation.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 9:05 PM
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A friend from other blogspace posted a thing about how her mother visited and was going on and on about her UPN, insisted on using the kid's middle name. I was all "how horrible!" and then saw the actual name on facebook and was all "how horrible!" Like it's a real name--not Mailbox or Indifference or even Ortrud--but actually seemed like a shitty thing to do to a kid.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 9:48 PM
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"Adolf", eh?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 10:16 PM
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My brother's son is Al/eric. My sister's son is--shit you not--Chiv/alry. Jesus is my family nerds.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 10-27-11 11:08 PM
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Man this is SO BORING without examples.

I've turned around on most unconventional names. I know of a kid named Yo which is pretty awesome. There was a preschool kid named Balthazar which was pretty sweet. I know a Coco who is very cute. I guess I'm supposed to dislike Nevaeh but I've never actually met one.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:12 AM
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what if he thinks I would be willing to give my son his name? Because (I would do anything for love but) I won't do that.

Bit of a problem if he thinks exactly the same thing, then ("does she expect me to be willing to give my son her name? Because that's a dealbreaker...")

"Shiv" would be a fairly good shortened form of Chiv/alry. And I am just reading about the former head of the Reichsbank, embittered for life by his eccentric father's decision to christen him Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:26 AM
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17: This seems problematic as "chivalry" is like as not to turn up in a sentence as "Chivalry's dead."


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:40 AM
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20: shoot. I guess I was supposed to googleproof.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:42 AM
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A guy at school had the initials TWERP. Which I thought was pretty cruel of his parents.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:59 AM
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Al/eric is spelled wrong, but is otherwise a fine name, underwritten by P>G>Wodehouse, no less.

But, it is time to link this.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:10 AM
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"...and he shrinks, no doubt, from the prospect of being addressed as Sir Lemuel."
"His name's not Lemuel?"
"Apparently so, sir."
"But couldn't he use his second name?"
"His second name is Gengulphus, sir."
"By George, Jeeves," I said, thinking of Uncle Tom Portarlington Travers, "there's some raw work pulled tt the font from time to time, isn't there?"


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:27 AM
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18: There was a Coco at my highschool. Her real name was Ad/rian. She was top 0.1 if not 0.01% rich. I think she came from European royalty or something. They had several villas there, although they did have at least one house in the U.S. The name fit her.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:36 AM
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Plus St. Barth's. You can''t forget the house on St. Barth's.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:37 AM
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I would totally participate in Occupy St. Barth's.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:00 AM
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27: Oh yeah, me too!


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:20 AM
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I used to know a girl called Lolita. Which did seem a bit dubious.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:37 AM
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I'm with Di on "jr" and "III" etc. Worse is unconventional spellings of common names, worse still insisting on unconventional pronunciations of common or semi-common names.

Plain old odd is kind of cool to me. My nephew is named after a tree and my niece is named "flower bud" in an African language. My adopted extended family includes a "Prosper," and one of my childhood friends was "Happy."


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:02 AM
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Is a high-income wacky name worse than a low-income one? Mara's real name is unusual, but clearly a twist on a biblical name. She has a sister who's not Neveah but not far off it and a brother and sister whose names are pretty near unique, as far as google can tell. Her counsins all start with the same letter and have various apostrophes and unusual spellings. But I'd think because none of them are offensive or the name of a liquor or car, the idea of a low-income black kid with a name like that is less bothersome than 1-percenter Anomaly Harmonica IV.

Since I'm using "my" kids as examples, Alex is a Jr. and actually goes by AJ rather than Alex (or real-name equivalent, of course) and that works. Val has a very long and poetic name. We were originally told it was spelled in a non-standard way, but that's because the social worker on her case mis-entered it and hers is instead exactly like it is in the famous poem. Their names are much more traditional than most of my middle-class coworkers' kids'.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:26 AM
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17: What's a family nerds?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:29 AM
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30: We have Prosper, too!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:35 AM
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31: Friends named their daughter that, if the poem is by that drunk dude from Baltimore?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:38 AM
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34: Nope, it's the pseudo-Acadian epic poem, though I've had two different friends give their daughters the one you mention.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:41 AM
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My adopted extended family includes a "Prosper," and one of my childhood friends was "Happy."

Literal English translations of common Tswane/Zulu names, no?


Posted by: knecht ruprecht | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:45 AM
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36: I know somebody with a Swahili first name that translates to a common (not usually personal-naming) household object. Her middle name is the English translation of that name. She goes by her middle name. I've never been quite clear why, but it works for her.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:01 AM
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36: Actually, those sound like they go back to Christian missionaries to me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:02 AM
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16: Think "cartoon cat with lisp."


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:02 AM
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40

IME most of the controversy over names boils down to "Will this person suffer severe and unnecessary consequences as the result of his/her name?"

What makes it difficult is that the consequences are about 80% in the eye of the beholder.

My parents got enormous pushback and judgment about their last-name decisions, virtually all of which was due to sexism. Most of the people concern-trolling me throughout my childhood were either trying to enforce a norm (insisting to me that I would change my name when I got older), defensively justify their own choice (I'm nine years old, lady, do you think I'm sitting around thinking about your name?), or create the dire consequences they were warning me about.

So, yeah. Once in a blue moon I run across a name that I think is tremendously ignorant or selfish of the parent to have inflicted on the child, generally because the child is going to have to spend a lifetime of having people think his parents are Nazi sympathizers or something.

But most of the time I think it's hard to predict what "severe consequences" are going to feel like to the child, and for some kids, being named Deborah is just as traumatic and upsetting as being named Strawberry is for some other kid.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:04 AM
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Once in a blue moon I run across a name that I think is tremendously ignorant or selfish of the parent to have inflicted on the child, generally because the child is going to have to spend a lifetime of having people think his parents are Nazi sympathizers or something.

Most of the time, I think that happens because his parents actually were Nazi sympathizers.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:06 AM
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41: I was thinking about a kid named Attila, actually. In his case it was a geographical problem rather than intentional politics on the part of his parents, but he did have to deal with an enormous amount of "Attila the Hun" remarks.

I also know a person named Baby Girl and a person named Grandma. Both of them grew up in cultures where those were loving and appropriate kinship-recognizing names, but now function in a society where they are viewed as weird, childish, or both.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:09 AM
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42: Lots of Hungarians named AHteelah. National hero, and all that.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:12 AM
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42: I was thinking of the kid named "Adolf Hitler" who came to the attention of family services when his parents tried to order a cade with a swastika.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:13 AM
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42. His parents were Hungarian? I understand it's not an uncommon name in certain circles there?

Mrs y used to work in a mail order department and kept a notebook (sadly lost) of the most striking customer names she encountered. M/o/n/a L/i/s/a G/o/o/s/e/b/e/r/r/y may have been the winner.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:13 AM
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It hadn't occurred to me, but the name that prompted the OP might lead the kid to a lifetime of rooting against the Cubs, which would be the Right and True position for any relative of mine (who's not my totally oddball brother).


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:13 AM
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42: I worked for an Attila once. Managed to avoid making any cracks about it, given that he'd obviously heard them all many, many times before, but it was hard not to think it was funny.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:14 AM
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I've encountered a fair number of Spanish-speaking Adolfos. It's not entirely clear if the reference fails to cross the linguistic divide, or if we're all being polite by not mentioning it.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:15 AM
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31: Friends named their daughter that, if the poem is by that drunk dude from Baltimore?

They named their kid Nevermore?


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:17 AM
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48: In Chile? Might not be a reference failure in all cases.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:17 AM
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46: A friend of my brother either did or had plans to name the firstborn "Addison Clark" or "Clark Addiison." Raising a kid to root for the Cubs may seem cruel, but it does teach a kid how to cope with disappointment.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:19 AM
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Both of my siblings made up names for their children.

My then-5 year old half-brother told my ex-wife and I that our soon-to-arrive child should be named "Museum."

So, for the first two or three years of his life, much of the family referred to him as "Museum."


Posted by: will` | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:19 AM
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There's a thing in this morning's Telegraph which asserts that the term Nazi was originally a Bavarian abbreviation of the name Ignatius, used derogatorily like the British use Wally, and that it was first applied to members of the NSDAP in that spirit by its opponents.

I have no idea if there's any truth in this, but I sort of wish there was.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:22 AM
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Tangentially to 48 and 50:

Venezuelan Parents Love a Famous Name, NYT, 1/7/07.

Caracas, Venezuela -- As university students clashed with the police in this country last May, attention focused not just on their demands to hold elections without government meddling but also on the names of the two leaders organizing the protests: Nixon Moreno and Stalin González.
Many Venezuelans had a good laugh at the names and went on with their business. What's so odd, after all, about the occasional Nixon or Stalin in a nation where bestowing bizarre names on newborns has become a whimsically colorful tradition?

Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:22 AM
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44: They were just in the news again because the parents' rights were terminated and they're claiming it's just for reasons of bias, not abuse or neglect.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:23 AM
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Museum is quite a cool euphonious name.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:26 AM
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55: Might be why it was on my mind as an example.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:26 AM
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Think "cartoon cat with lisp."

Some people I know gave their kid a name shared by a children's television character who lives in a trash-can. Seemed ill-advised at the time, but now it's just a name. It was always probably a few times more common than the lisping cartoon cat's name, though.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:28 AM
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36: Prosper has been around for a while - Prospero, obviously, and Prosper Merimée who wrote "Carmen".

45.2: ah, we did the same thing. The "special contacts list" we called it. "Brad Ch/uck" and "Guy Am/erica" were on it.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:31 AM
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I know a Coco who is very cute.

I'm worried about Coco now that Kim and Thurston are getting divorced.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:32 AM
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Other cities in Texas might be worse. But "Houston, we have a problem" would be a great punchline for jokes about impotence, breaking condoms, and premature ejaculation.

I know someone named Houston. He was pleased when I told him the first word spoken on the moon.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:32 AM
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Does naming a child Houston imply that he or she was poorly planned?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:35 AM
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63

Also from the drunk Baltimore guy, "Lenore", which is great except that it's the name of a fabric conditioner and so you get jokes based on the old product slogan which was "everyone feels better in Lenor".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:36 AM
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60: David and Courtney, too.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:37 AM
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Think "cartoon cat with lisp."

Felith?


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:39 AM
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36: Yep. There are a lot like that. Prosper's sister is Fumani, which is Setswana for prosper.

56: So is Felony. If you named your daughter Felony Demeanor she could be introduced as Ms Demeanor or Felony depending on the formality of the situation.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:42 AM
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Prosper has been around for a while - Prospero, obviously, and Prosper Merimée who wrote "Carmen".

The one that sticks in my mind for no apparent reason is that George Orwell had childhood friends Prosper, Jacintha and Guinevere Buddicom.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:46 AM
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Felith?

You're dethpicable!


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:56 AM
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I think the cartoon cat with a lisp and the Sesame Street character who lives in a trash can both have lovely names for a child. Although as a Germanist, Oscar (Oskar) has a somewhat more disturbing immediate association.

I'm sure this means I'm one of those monsters who will give my future progeny terrible UPPs.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:56 AM
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All the Oscars I know are Mexican, I think. Four out of five, anyway.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:06 AM
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I think the cartoon cat with a lisp and .... have lovely names for a child.

If I were named in part after a yellow cartoon bird I would feel totally dissed right now.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:08 AM
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I very much wish right now that I had a scan of the snapshot of me and my dad at Halloween when I was 3, where he is Sylvester and I am Tweety. (Bored SAH mom needing creative outlet for the Halloween win!)


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:16 AM
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I think 40 is right.

My older brother is named M/ke and when he and his wife were choosing names for their first son, we were discussing it and M/ke was very intent on giving his son a common name because he remembered he always felt bad for me when we were kids because my name was so uncommon (I don't think we met anyone else name M/tch or M/tchell until sometime in highschool).

I had never known he felt that way, and it was funny since I always felt sorry for him because his name was so ordinary and there were always at least two or three M/kes or M/chaels in every class.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:21 AM
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72: Now I wish I'd thought of that when my daughter was young enough to make our relative sizes right for the characters.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:26 AM
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73: I had no idea Møke was so common.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:28 AM
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35: I love that name, mostly because of the song (I'm thinking of the JGB versions). But as a deeply non-, even anti-religious person, I don't know I could name a kid that. A proselytizing child would be awful.

At camp there was a family in which the eldest daughter was Eliza/beth, the second Fai/th, the third Chas/tity. Creepy seeing the parents' spiritual evolution, that was.


Posted by: Alfrek Macsteinie | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:31 AM
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74: Actually, scratch (some of) that. Me in a cat suit: not good. The kid as Tweety, on the other hand: awesome.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:32 AM
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No catsuit! My dad wore a white shirt and black pants with the big fake fur Sylvester head and a tail tucked into the pants. The Tweety costume was a yellow jumpsuit and a fake fur Tweety head. The Tweety head was pretty unstructured, but I think the Sylvester was somehow on a big frame. I have no idea how my mom did it.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:37 AM
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I had no idea Møke was so common.

Don't underestimate the popularity of Møke and Mindy


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:42 AM
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76: Her parents are also non-religious and she mostly goes by her nickname from the first two letters of the name, though she prefers the full thing. To me, it's different enough from the religious term that I wouldn't worry about overlap. I think it's a very pretty name and definitely underused.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:48 AM
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I guess I'm supposed to dislike Nevaeh but I've never actually met one.

My very white trash cousin skipped the backwards thing and just named his daughter Heaven.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:56 AM
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I have no idea how my mom did it.

I have residual Halloween-based guilt regarding my mother's attempt to satisfy my goofball five-year-old-self's request to go dressed as a cricket. (A cricket? I mean, WTF, self?)

She had me done-up in a hoodie, some antennae, and some seriously impressionistic camouflage-esque make up, and I freaked out that it wasn't right, crying like a spoiled brat. And then I went dressed as a sailor instead.

Sorry, Mom!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:57 AM
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I love that name, mostly because of the song (I'm thinking of the JGB versions).

The (slightly creepy, but nonetheless rockin') song I associate with the name is this.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:57 AM
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84

81: everyone wants to get into Heaven.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:58 AM
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as is well known, my father wanted to name me "alameida realfirstname" as a southern-style, use both names thing, but it was vetoed partly on the grounds, expressed by my grandfather, that it "sounded like a racehorse." which is somewhat silly given that there was a famous racehorse named "maud snow/den" and my mother is named snow/den. so what was he bitching about all of a sudden? as a child I regretted having the middle name of (arguably) our nation's worst ever president and wished I had been given blanchard instead. husband x and I were going to have to have some difficult conversations in the event of male progeny, because I think last names are perfectly great first names and he, being normal, does not.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:58 AM
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81, 84: So sad; the endless possibilities for "pearly gates" jokes boggles the mind.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:04 AM
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My trashy cousins gave their kids porn star names. Not "Ha, that sounds like a porn star!" but the working names of old-school ladies in that industry (S@vann@h and Amber L/y/nn).


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:09 AM
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Pron-geny!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:09 AM
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This is what I was talking about. (I'm not sure if folks hip enough to be on this site would be hip to the term"JGB").

Also, Clarence Clemons' shirt is pretty awesome in this video.

80: The first two letters indicate another biblical name, which would also make me feel weird. OTOH, I share a name with the one who brought down the walls of Jericho, but that is such a common name.


Posted by: Alfrek Macsteinie | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:12 AM
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I think last names are perfectly great first names and he, being normal, does not.

That's not normal. What's wrong with Stuart, Clive, Howard, Percy, Neville, Bruce... the list is endless? All last names, all perfectly acceptable as first names now, but somebody must have been the first person to get called by them.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:13 AM
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91

JGB is the J Geils Band in common parlance.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:15 AM
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Percy [. . .] perfectly acceptable as first names now

On this side of the pond, a boy named Percy would almost certainly be teased mercilessly and/or get the living shit beat out of him.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:17 AM
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My son shares a name with England's dread regicide*. As I understand it, it's the absolutely most common name in the UK (and maybe 100 here?).

*I've certainly told this story here before, but once when tasked with mailing a ms to a very prominent Hellenist with that name, I mailed the ms instead to a very prominent Romanist with that name. Oops. The two gentlemen were at the same university but different colleges. It seemed entirely possible for them to have some kind of blood feud and I was expecting to get grief when I wrote to the Romanist and told him of my mistake and to discard the ms. He wrote back to tell me that it was his fault entirely for being named for "our dread regicide."


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:18 AM
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93. I think I know the Hellenist, much given to producing tragedies, but I can't think of a Romanist of that generation. Must be way out of touch.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:22 AM
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87: At least they didn't go with Pandora Peaks


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:24 AM
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94: In print, he uses regicide's name only as his second initial. He, in fact, has 4 initials and then a surname. Got it?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:24 AM
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Oh, right.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:25 AM
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92: Not so much now with the rise of Percy Jackson, Percy in Thomas the Tank Engine, and Percy Weasely from Harry Potter.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:26 AM
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My Uncle Nis/se grew up with the indignity of having a Yiddish name that is both unknown in the U.S. and has an unfortunate rhyme. The indignity was compounded when as an adult he became a Japanese car.

(He hated it, and changed his name to something more American by high school.)


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:29 AM
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99: Chrysler?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:30 AM
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93: I hope this exchange included the emphatic, perhaps tearful statement "I don't even see Indo-European linguistic phyla!"


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:31 AM
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98: I've been wondering about the Harry Potter effect. Who'd want to be named for Percy Weasley? Also, I bet there are a lot of little girls being named Hermione, and it's quite hard to find a nastier piece of work in Greek lit.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:31 AM
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102: I know!! on the lastname as first name thing I was thinking more along the lines of townsend or livingston or wainwright. you could be called wayne! well, wain.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:36 AM
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and it's quite hard to find a nastier piece of work in Greek lit.

Um, bet I could find a few. She was a piece of work, but she wasn't dealt an easy hand.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:38 AM
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re: 103

Livingston? With his brother Bathgate, and cousin Cumbernauld.

"Hi, I'm Cumbernauld Kilbride MacDuff"


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:41 AM
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Actually, Cumbernauld nattarGcM sounds quite good. Like the name one of the Wombles might have.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:44 AM
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Or a low-rent Scottish version of Indiana Jones.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:48 AM
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re: 107

Cumbernauld MacDuff and the Buckfast of Blantyre.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:51 AM
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its not important that you be called that. my great-uncle carrol livingston etc. is known as "sonny." just as my grandfather stuyve/sant was known as "stibbs."


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:52 AM
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re: 107

Now my head is full of ideas.

Cumbernauld etc and the Crystal Chib.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:53 AM
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you could be called wayne! well, wain.
The others in that list... liv or vin would be okayish. But "townsend" is a desert.


Posted by: Annelid Gustator | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:57 AM
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I always hated my first name--the biblical archetype of the whiny drudge. But when I was in high school I met a hot black-leather-clad adventuress who shared the name, so I felt better about it.


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:01 AM
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112: Go on.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:03 AM
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Um, bet I could find a few.

Well, "mortal edition." She had it pretty good, really. Her parents came back from the war they started, she married Achilles son. No one told her she had to threaten to kill nice ladies and their children and her father in law. And even after all that she gets to run off with Orestes (who just killed the husband she never liked anyway).


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:06 AM
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Um, there's degrees of "pretty good". Her parents abandoned her (separately) at the age of 9 and didn't come back till she was grown up. And then she married and found she couldn't have kids, which was probably a rough deal in the bronze age, when attitudes would have been even less enlightened than Aeschylus' if anything. You might not be as well balanced as you'd like.

And was Orestes really such a catch by then?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:31 AM
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I never thought after-school art class could be so much fun.


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:34 AM
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Percy in Thomas the Tank Engine was not only a smart-ass, but a scab!

Percy is a cheeky saddletank who was brought to Sodor to help run the railway during the big engines' strike.

Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:53 AM
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45, 59: I really wish I'd kept a list like that when I worked with lots of client records. The best one I can remember was "Ma/ry A. P/um". When a close friend was working in the same office, I would send her the account number associated with the funny name and a subject line riffing on it, so for that one I did "Divorce A Prune". I thought that was pretty clever. Also did institutional accounts, so for subject line "The all-singing, all-dancing sequel to 'Salaam Bombay'" the account was "Sha/om St. Pau/".

And of course there's Frowner's find, which remains, I submit, the greatest name combination ever: "W/nsome Cox".


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:54 AM
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Um, bet I could find a few.

Think about all the poor kids who will be named after Tyler Perry's Medea.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:04 AM
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119: I have a friend who named her daughter a variant spelling of Medea. With full knowledge of the mythological implications. Her son is a 'counselor to elves'.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:08 AM
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118: Also I would go hunting for unusual names. Found basically all of the silly/stereotype Italian names ('Soprano' etc). And a surprising number of Presidents. 24 of them, I think.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:09 AM
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You know, I'm not sure that any of the classicists I know have given their kids "classical" names.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:12 AM
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Her son is a 'counselor to elves'

Funny, I always thought that was Counseled by Elves.

("He hears these voices, you know?")


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:15 AM
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118.last: I know a guy with a very similar (possibly even funnier?) name.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:15 AM
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124: Holden?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:16 AM
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I'm not sure that any of the classicists I know have given their kids "classical" names.

Well, would you? Yes, Mrs Wilson, so you're naming your daughter after a woman who was called a liar by everybody she knew, kidnapped into slavery after her family was massacred, and then murdered by her owner's wife. Good choice, there.

I give Helen a pass by pretending they're all named after Constantine's mum, but I know it ain't so.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:19 AM
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I've mentioned before that I like "Roosevelt" as a boys first name, and want to reclaim it for whiteys.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:21 AM
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127. Infinite recursion. FDR's first given name was a last name used as a first name for the guy whose last name was FDR's middle given name, and now you want to use his last name as a given name too. Awesome.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:25 AM
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125: W/iley.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:26 AM
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124: Randy?


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:27 AM
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I know a classicist's daughter named Julia, who isn't named after that Julia.

Also: Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name was Roosevelt. See if you can do anything with that.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:28 AM
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On a related note, the Nude Eel would be a not-terrible name for a '30s-themed political restaurant. With a fish tank.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:35 AM
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I've known a classicist's Alexander, but it was a middle name and we're talking an archaeologist and Latinist anyway.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:47 AM
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Friends of a friend of mine had a foster child whose name was unique -- literally, Unique. When they adopted her, they renamed her something conventional like Jenny or Beth. Seemed like a weird move.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:51 AM
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Have I mentioned the South Indian dynastic politician named after Stalin? For complicated reasons, it's his given name but it's how he's normally referred to. And he'll probably be Chief Minister of the state someday.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:53 AM
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130: Ha! A guy at a company I used to work for was actually named Randy [slang term for penis that starts with "D"].

Then there was the realtor in my hometown named R/chard Dripps, which never failed to elicit a snort from my mom whenever we walked past a house displaying one of his for-sale signs.


Posted by: toops | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:54 AM
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40
IME most of the controversy over names boils down to "Will this person suffer severe and unnecessary consequences as the result of his/her name?"

Agreed. I hated my name growing up, but in hindsight I have to admit that it's harmless. Kids are cruel and will make fun of you for anything. Since high school I've been more bothered by the hyphenation in my last name than anything else. (And not for gender-role or relationship-assumption reasons, just for the inconvenience of being addressed by just one part or another, or both when I wouldn't prefer it, or companies that can't handle hyphens in their computer systems, or whatever.)

66
56: So is Felony. If you named your daughter Felony Demeanor she could be introduced as Ms Demeanor or Felony depending on the formality of the situation.

Reminds me of a running joke in some Discworld books about how (a) women with names of virtues live out the opposite of those names, so Charity grows up to be a miser and Chastity grows up to be a prostitute; and (b) some rural family got the idea that since women get named after virtues, men should be named for vices, so there's a family of characters with names like Bestiality Carter.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 10:58 AM
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Well, my patrilineal line is all proper Christian names - George, Stephen, John, William, etc., recurring over the centuries. (Sniff.) I suspect I'd try to draw from that shallow font if I ever have a son, as a token nod to the hidebound traditions we mostly reject.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:00 AM
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132: Roosevelt's Nude Eel would make a good name for a porn film. Think 'depression-era historical fiction' meets 'Japanese tentacle-porn'.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:01 AM
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136: Mr. Dripps should get together with these guys.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:03 AM
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136: Oh, well if you include last names, the sky's the limit on embarrassment. A co-worker of mine has the last name S/l/u/t/z, and her first name doesn't exactly help.

There's something about Eastern European names. When I was an exchange student I met a guy with the last name "Strokoff". Fortunately, as a French teen of Russian origin, he was completely ignorant of what it sounds like in English, but I ran it by a guy fluent in English once just to make sure I wasn't imagining the resemblance.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:07 AM
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Don't you qualify yourself as a guy fluent in English?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:08 AM
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||

"The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic, this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we've all become," Cameron told reporters.

Yes, now it's a thoroughly modern hereditary monarchy.

|>


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:09 AM
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If the monarch can marry a Catholic, what was the point of the Glorious Revolution?


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:12 AM
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133: Oh right. I know an Alexander and an Amanda. But no, like, Tanaquils or Phrynes.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:13 AM
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A friend of mine has the unfortunate last name Suck/et.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:14 AM
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I went to school with a L/c/y Edg/, as one might find on one's frilly party gown. She later became, IIRC, a Naval ordinance officer.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:17 AM
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142: Sure, but I have a weird sense of humor. I could have been reaching for a bizarre connotation to it. (Or maybe I just should have written "another guy fluent in English".)


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:17 AM
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My parents nearly named me something that would have been unpronouncable on emigration, Řehoř. I'd have gone by Ray or a nickname.

I think that nicknames are pretty interesting, actually, especially in light of how they're such a popular choice for tattoos, as an alternative for an inspirational slogan.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:18 AM
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This is probably wrong and of interest to no one, but a bit of clicking around on wikipedia suggests that if equal primogeniture had been in place from the time of George I, then Beatrix of the Netherlands would currently have been Queen of England.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:24 AM
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Eh, I did it again, and I came out with Margrethe II of Denmark as the rightful Queen of England. I guess I should stop wasting time.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:36 AM
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I'm trying to reproduce your work but I come to a blank wall at Marie, Countess of Neipperg, daughter of William I of Wurttembuerg, who doesn't have a Wikipedia page. What am I doing wrong?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:38 AM
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Wuerttemberg, that is.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:38 AM
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Beatrix of the Netherlands would currently have been Queen of England.

Would she? How so? George II was older than his sister. Of course if he had ob. sin. prog., the Kaiser would have been king of England, which would have been fun.

Personally, like most Brits, I don't much care who is Secretary of State for Rubber Chicken and Cutting Ribbons, provided they know their place.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:42 AM
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While parents should feel free to give their children as unusual a first name as they like, they should also be obliged to give them a middle name which is at least as conventional as the first name, so the kid can switch to using the middle name when they get tired of being the butt of jokes, then switch back when they want to be beautiful and unique snowflakes. So, Pterodactyl James Lastname might be Pterry in elementary school, Jim in middle school, Pterodactyl in high school, and P.J. in college.


Posted by: Hamilton-Lovecraft | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:48 AM
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But it's not a very good counterfactual anyway since if Princess Augusta had succeeded George II, she would probably have married someone other than the Duke of Brunswick, or if she had, her daughter would have married someone other than the King of Württemberg, and so forth.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:48 AM
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155: "Pterry" is genius. I now want to have a kid just to name him that. Of course, it goes without saying that I'll also have to change my last name to "Psmith."


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:51 AM
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155: Sounds good in theory. Doesn't work when there's continuity in people knowing you, though. Admittedly, I tried it in the middle of a school year and gave up on it after a couple weeks of no one being able to remember to call me by my middle name, and I'll bet neither of those choices helped... but where I grew up, kindergarten through 12th grade were in one building, so there was never a chance to introduce myself to people anew until college. And even if you live in an area big enough that there are different schools for different grades, if you have any friends who span multiple schools then it might be a problem persuading them to use the new name.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:56 AM
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157 gets it exactly right.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 11:57 AM
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Doesn't work when there's continuity in people knowing you, though.

This is how my lovely cousin, father of two, respected businessman, is still known to his family and old friends as "Butc/hie."


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:04 PM
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I tried again, and got a third answer (not a sign of reliability). Marie, Countess of Neipperg didn't have any kids. (Her husband was 'kinderlos'). So: George I is succeeded by George II is succeeded by Princess Augusta of Wales is succeeded by Duchess Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel is succeeded by William I of Württemberg is succeeded by Marie, Countess of Neipperg, who died childless. Her sister Sophie had three children, none of whom outlived Marie and none of whom had issue. Her other sister Catherine of Württemberg would have inherited the throne, and passed it on to her son Wilhelm II of Württemberg, who is succeeded by Princess Pauline of Württemberg, who who is succeeded by Friedrich Wilhelm, Prince of Wied, who is succeeded by Carl, Prince of Wied, who is still alive.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:07 PM
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Carl, Prince of Wied would legalize pot, if he could.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:08 PM
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160: A guy I knew from my last job, businessman, fireman and town selectman: known as "Peek/er". Small town stuff again, of course.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:13 PM
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French news agency AFP's headline: "Elderly poet wins Irish presidency."
That sort of republic I would enthusiastically welcome emotionally as well as intellectually. It's the prospect of a Reagan or a De Gaulle that gives me pause (or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt - benevolent dictators are a high risk strategy, even elected ones.)


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:31 PM
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If the monarch can marry a Catholic, what was the point of the Glorious Revolution?

The throne itself is still reserved for a Protestant, thank God.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:36 PM
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I suppose Catholics will just have to settle for the rise in the popularity of Guy Fawkes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:39 PM
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At a previous job I had reason to correspond with a woman who voluntarily went by 'M/uffy K/och' - her given name was something innocuous. It still amuses me.


Posted by: julia f | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:39 PM
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I suppose Catholics will just have to settle for the rise in the popularity of Guy Fawkes.

No reason why a Catholic shouldn't be Prime Minister, Speaker of either house or Lord Chief Justice. Blair converted after he left office because he's a cynical cunt, but if he'd been received before that it wouldn't have been unconstitutional.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:42 PM
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167. Wow! Did she seem undamaged by this?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:44 PM
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My mother had a friend when she was a flight attendant who went by the nickname "Beaver". It was a simpler, more innocent time.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:45 PM
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168: All of those jobs sound like real work.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:45 PM
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It's a little odd in that I believe the Prime Minister makes appointments in the Church of England. But I guess Gordon Brown probably wasn't an Anglican, and there have probably been others. I have no idea how they handle that -- I suppose the way it works in the real world is that the C of E just gives the Prime Minister a list of names who he then appoints without a problem.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:45 PM
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172 to 168, although it's funnier to 170.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:46 PM
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There used to be a Canadian history magazine called The Beaver. I only learned about them because they recently changed their name for some reason.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:48 PM
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172. Brenda (the Queen) makes the appointments on the advice of the PM. Brown is certainly not a member of the Church of England, but nor was Ramsay MacDonald or (I think) David Lloyd George. The decisions are taken by the structures of the Church; the formalities are carried out by the officers of state. Elizabeth II is, in point of fact, a devout Anglican. Prince Charles is a deist (stupid, confused tendency), but nothing will change when the old lady sticks her spoon in the wall.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:54 PM
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169: She chose to go by it! I can't decide whether she was genuinely oblivious (which would be kind of charming) or whether she had a secret, subversive, anarchic wit and was just messing with the world. (None of my interaction with her supports the second option but that could just be evidence of her wholehearted commitment to the joke.)


Posted by: julia f | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:55 PM
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Lloyd George wasn't an Anglican? I thought the Welsh were trained in special choir-singing concentration camps for the benefit of the Church.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:56 PM
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Wikipedia suggests that LG's uncle was a Baptist, but is silent as to LG's denomination. Presumably "not too religious" covered it.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:59 PM
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177. They sing for the Chapel! I'm not sure about his affiliation, but he certainly campaigned long and hard for nonconformist causes in his youth.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 12:59 PM
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For those interested, Chris Y is totally right, but the appointment process for Church of England bishops is apparently a convoluted consensus building process that makes your local anarchist collective look like a military hierarchy.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:02 PM
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And why am I not surprised by this:

"In recent memory, the only prime minister who has not accepted the commission's preferred candidate was Margaret Thatcher, who opposed James Lawton Thompson's nomination as Bishop of Birmingham, due to his (perceived) liberal and left-leaning views."


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:03 PM
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Some good friends of oudemia, Molly, and myself gave their children the middle name "Danger."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:22 PM
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181. Thatcher, of course, was technically a Methodist. Forgot that.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:36 PM
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I was just talking about funny names with a friend yesterday, actually. Apparently at a previous job she used to know a woman with the last name "Morecock".

Modern right-wing politics provide all the innuendo you could possibly need in names. Let's see here, while Santorum is bringing up the rear in the Republican primary, Boehner and the Koch brothers are leading a bunch of teabaggers to continue the legacy of Bush and Dick. Did I forget anyone?

182: That's awesome. I want to have kids just so I can give one of them that middle name.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:39 PM
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Beamish, wouldn't who had children by whom itself change drastically if you suddenly start elevating people to the throne? After two generations everything will, potentially, be totally different, nicht wahr?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:52 PM
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Well, sure. A little bit of jostling will lead to different weather after a few weeks, and then pretty much none of the same spermatozoa make it to an egg. I'm just asking who would reign if the British decided that their monarch should be the actual person who inherits from George I by the principle of equal primogeniture.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 1:59 PM
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If the rules were different, Charles would have had children by Diana.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:01 PM
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174 - Beaver College (a women's school, natch) changed its named when it became a university in 2001.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:01 PM
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NPR just used the word "upcrease" in what is presented as a serious news bulletin. I have lived too long.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:04 PM
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NPR just used the word "upcrease" in what is presented as a serious news bulletin.

I guess "upskirt" is too informal for NPR.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:13 PM
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188: They were having trouble recruiting students because the computers at high schools all blocked their url.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:16 PM
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I remember a Times wedding announcement for a Jay Li/ckDy/ke. Surprisingly, the bride elected to keep her name.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:16 PM
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A little investigation shows that she graduated from Smith.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:19 PM
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Some good friends of oudemia, Molly, and myself gave their children the middle name "Danger."

We were really considering it. Particularly for our daughter.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 2:48 PM
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Strictly speaking I do not know if Elizabeth II is in fact always an Anglican. I think that when she is in Scotland she is a Presbyterian.


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:17 PM
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Well, would you? Yes, Mrs Wilson, so you're naming your daughter after a woman who was called a liar by everybody she knew, kidnapped into slavery after her family was massacred, and then murdered by her owner's wife. Good choice, there.

This is Jane's middle name and I'm not sorry! So there. I figure it will be good for her to have someone to identify with tragically when she is an adolescent.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:21 PM
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By contrast, I find "Danger" and its relatives as middle names to be unbearably precious. In conclusion, I'm an asshole.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:23 PM
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195: Does she appear to be totally depraved when in Scotland but not when in England?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:25 PM
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196: You know I love C. My diss. is about her, even, and still I love her!
197: God help me, and I do love the father of those kids, but this was my thinking exactly.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:29 PM
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Ha! It is hard to tell; after all faith not works, right?


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:31 PM
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191: Similarly, the Canadian magazine was having some trouble with what people were finding when searching the title on the web.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:45 PM
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The Queen isn't the head of the Church of Scotland, though she is sworn to defend it.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 3:57 PM
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No, of course not head (no Bishops and no Kings), but she does attend Church of Scotland services when in Scotland, not Episcopalian services.


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:01 PM
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Girls named "Jennifer" don't take kindly to being reminded that they share a name with Mrs. King Arthur.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:10 PM
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I'd think you'd have to put a lot of spin on it to actually offend a Jennifer that way. Perhaps a lot of eyebrow wiggling and while following up with "They used to call me 'Lance'," might do it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:14 PM
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I'm still hanging on to Hateface Mazltov. Someday, some lucky kid...


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:23 PM
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I particularly like names pronounced very differently from the expectations instilled by their spellings: Siobhan, Niamh, Medbh, Beauchamp, St. John, etc.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:23 PM
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You would probably enjoy these, Flip.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:35 PM
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Flip is surprisingly on-trend for kiddie naming.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:44 PM
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208 was me.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 4:48 PM
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182: A child of the Xtian punx down the block has Danger as his middle name. I'm not 100% sure, because I don't know them that well, but I believe his father is the tall stoner universally known as "5haggy". Sigh.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 5:56 PM
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If you're a tall stoner, what higher praise than being universally known as "5haggy"?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:18 PM
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If you're a tall stoner, what higher praise than being universally known as "shaggy"?

Fred letting you drive the van?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:38 PM
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He's happy to introduce himself by that name, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I mean, he seems like a sweet guy and everything -- many people have their criticisms of him, especially on the mooching front, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of being violent or abusive. It just seems like maybe it would be good for the kid to have a dad who wasn't quite so checked-out all the time, is all.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:46 PM
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Sure, but if you have to have a checked-out dad, you may as well have the one everybody calls 5haggy rather than a 2nd rate stoner.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 6:50 PM
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Yeah, that's true. Little J. Danger Shaggyson will probably have some great stories to dine out on for the rest of his life. His mom seems totally cool, very responsible and stuff, so it's not like he's going to have his stroller sold out from under him for weed money or something.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 7:05 PM
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great stories to dine out on for the rest of your life is definitely not nothing, but at the same time one would, in many circumstances, have preferred the loss of the tale to the thing not happening to begin with. my mother used to laughingly console me, in her traditional half-way off silk dressing-gown, lit cigarette, and icy-bells bourbon on the rocks that "it would be great for my novel someday" which, no, fuck you.

existing roosevelts have a distressing propensity to name their children 'ke/rmit,' but no one would seriously considering naming anyone townsend can complain on the traditionalist front.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:14 PM
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I've seen an existing Roosevelt and his family. I didn't ask the kid's name.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:16 PM
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I have a friend who named her child Kermit (sort of), but then my ancestors share family last names-as-first names with alameida's ancestors, so don't ask me.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:19 PM
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And whatever his faults, K. Roosevelt was unfailingly competent.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:20 PM
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Was he the one played by Henry Fonda in the D-Day movie?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:22 PM
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You know who aren't particularly imaginative namers of children, at least in my experience? Irish-American families in New England and the rest of the Northeast. (Variant spellings of "Caitlin" don't count toward variety.)


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:23 PM
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222: My dad and the three of his siblings with children have all have a daughter with the same, very common Irish name. Two of them have only one daughter.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:28 PM
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222: How does that work? Alternate weekends and so on?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:29 PM
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That's crazy, Flip. No one changes the spelling of their name each weekend.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:30 PM
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The boys have even less original names. It's just the same 8 eights for the past 160 years.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:30 PM
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"same eight names"


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:30 PM
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224: By this point, they all have different last names.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:31 PM
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You know who really aren't imaginative names of children? Scots.

Even the voguish names are just traditional names! They just haven't been used lately!


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:52 PM
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I have a (male) ancestor named "experience;" I sort of feel like that should have been revived in the 1960s. worst female family name: pain.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:53 PM
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The (non-invited) guest at our wedding who served a vital purpose in convincing everybody else they weren't as drunk as all that was named for one of the seven virtues.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:58 PM
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Uxoriousness? Continence?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 8:59 PM
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the washington post runs a yearly 20 most popular names of the year article. since DC is majority black, these names are always unexpected. and of necessity they're not even getting into the unique names! like "SirValiant Brown" my sister's grade school classmate and eventual college b-ball player. I thought he was named something like "sebalian" for ages until we saw a printed roster.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:00 PM
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Whole lot of chocolate cities out there, SirValiant.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:02 PM
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Unconventional names seem like they would be a lot nicer than the sort of name where you often find yourself in a room with two or three other people with the same name.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:06 PM
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235: it could be worse, Ohi.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:07 PM
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I never met anyone else with my (real) name until I was 17. but it has become much more popular since then. it does give men a chance to make lame compliments but there could be worse things.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:18 PM
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I have never met anyone younger than my grandparents with my first name, although apparently it cracked the top 1000 in the US in 2009 and 2010.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-28-11 9:43 PM
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I have a male ancestor named "Philander," which as a child I thought beautiful.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 4:53 AM
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212: I saw a bit of a porn version of Scooby Doo, and was very upset that they got Velma wrong. Porno Velma is not an uptight, repressed woman who discovers her explosive sexuality. Porno Velma is an earnest, but pedantic, sex-educator type. "Now Shaggy, you know that anything you put in you anus should have a flared base."

Don't these people know anything about nerds and sex?


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 6:48 AM
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I bought a tshirt at the SF Pride Parade from the Lesbian Avengers that said VELMA POWER! with a pic.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 6:52 AM
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in her traditional half-way off silk dressing-gown, lit cigarette, and icy-bells bourbon on the rocks that "it would be great for my novel someday" which, no, fuck you.

This is a marvelous image, especially "icy-bells bourbon on the rocks," that ought to be in somebody's novel.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 7:30 AM
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worst female family name: pain.

Oh, you never know--maybe it's Gaelic. And pronounced "Pain in the ass."


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 7:40 AM
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243: I was 8 before I learned that wasn't really my given name.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:12 AM
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244: Its like that Cosby routine where he thinks as a kid that his name is "Dammit" and his brother Russell is named "Jesus Christ."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:44 AM
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244: Much like Baldrick's first name in Blackadder is "Sodoff".


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:48 AM
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Hmm, competing pop culture references -- do they constitute pwnage?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:48 AM
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The fix for the situation where the PM is not an Anglican is that the civil servant in charge of patronage in No.10 Downing Street, the PM's Appointments Secretary, has to be one. It's the only civil service job that is reserved by religion. Peter Hennessy's The Prime Minister, the definitive work, refers.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:53 AM
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do they constitute pwnage

Or a meme...?


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 8:56 AM
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239: Philander C. Knox?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 9:49 AM
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No, but I'm relieved to know that "Philander" was a name inflicted on others.

In other news, it is snowing so, so much here.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 10:04 AM
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Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 10:16 AM
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Man, we had a tiny bit and now I think we're done. Oh well. I'd love this winter to be a repeat of the one before last.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 10:53 AM
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I'm only up to comment 58, but good lord is this the most frustrating thread ever. It doesn't help me to know that your friends named their kid after the backwards square root of a 12th century bard. WHAT IS THE KID'S NAME??!1!?


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:06 AM
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253: oops. Actually snowing quite nicely now.
254: I was similarly quite frustrated by some of the allusive comments. FFS, people, rockstar classicists don't have time for vanity-googling.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:12 AM
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The trick is to remove the slashes, or replace them with a suitable vowel.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:29 AM
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So that's how I deduce the name of a prominent Romanist with four first initials, the second of which is an "O"? Good to know!


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:52 AM
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254: And he's dead to boot! Good grief. R/O/A/M L/y/ne. His brother is Adrian, incidentally.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:58 AM
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257: If you know he's also a regicide, that narrows it down to "Oliver." The liar/slave is Cassandra, the lisping cartoon cat is Sylvester, and the biblical/poem name beats me, but you shouldn't guess too hard on that one, because I think it's really really supposed to stay googleproof.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 11:59 AM
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259: I had all the first names, it just seemed to be a waste to be quite so obscure.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:08 PM
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The regicide bit was reasonably transparent.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:09 PM
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259: Ev@ngel/ne, I think.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:23 PM
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Longfellow being the one who wrote the Acadian poem referred to somewhere above.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:23 PM
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I hope that wasn't too un-Google-proofed to be suitable for the blog.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:24 PM
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259-60: Oh, good. I was sort of surprised that anyone would have had trouble with the ones I got, but figured that saying that rather than giving answers would have been obnoxious.

"Biblical" threw me for the other one -- I mean, I can see how it makes sense, but it's outside the space of what I think of as biblical names enough to lose me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:39 PM
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Honestly? I didn't get any of them. But, you know, this place routinely reminds me how very much I know so very little about.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:45 PM
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266: Crap, and there I go to obnoxiousness again. But it's not like it's about breadth of knowledge; Sylvester and Tweety is Looney Tunes.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 12:57 PM
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Oh, wait, I did get Sylvester. Although I did jump to Felix first. Because those are cartoons.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 1:03 PM
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I understand cartoons on a deeper level.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 1:04 PM
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I wonder if anybody has named their kid Stimpy.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 1:07 PM
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I wonder if South Park has cut down on the number of boys named Eric?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 1:18 PM
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"Evangeline" is a lovely name. I recall that in William Hjortsberg's novel Falling Angel, crassly adapted for Mickey Rourke as Angel Heart, there are a mother and daughter named Evangeline and Epiphany Proudfoot.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 2:18 PM
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Sorry about being unclear. I'm not supposed to be using the kids' names online, but really no one cares. Lee and then Mara talked to Mara's dad yesterday and it turns out her name was supposed to be straight-up biblical, Esther's Hebrew (or "Latin," as Lee thinks her dad said) name, same as her great-great-grandmother's. We're going to keep using the variant spelling and pronunciation her mother's family uses, though.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 2:28 PM
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273: wait. Like Joe Lieberman's wife?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 5:21 PM
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I've met a Roosevelt recently.

Also someone named N/ix/on Chr/ist/mas.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 5:40 PM
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chris y: why do you torment yourself by listening to NPR?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 6:48 PM
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Yes, exactly like that, except the current pronunciation changes all the vowel sounds except the first and ends -sha for -sah, which is the euphony/mispronunciation thing. Her current name is much more common in the African American Christian community than the Jewish version would be. We say "uh" for the first vowel sound while her mom's side of the family says "ah," but other than that we go with their pronunciation rathet than anything more Liebermanesque.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 10-29-11 7:01 PM
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rockstar classicists

A rare breed indeed.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 10:49 AM
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I always hated my first name--the biblical archetype of the whiny drudge.

I think your namesake is kind of hard done by, actually. Of course she's careful and troubled about many things: her good-for-nothing sister doesn't lift a finger around the house!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 11:45 AM
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One of the early guitarists for the Lemonheads went on to become a classics professor.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 12:52 PM
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A classicist at Stanford (who used to be at the UofC) played guitar for Iron Maiden on one of their tours.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:00 PM
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Al Gore used to be Iron Maiden's roommate at Harvard.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:03 PM
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||

You know, I don't mind having my writing edited, but there's really no reason ever to bother substituting 'thus' for 'so'. At that point, you're just looking for random shit to change.

|>


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:15 PM
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Thus, a needle-pulling thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:17 PM
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But, your boss might be a micro-manager or over-eager to inflate his/her contribution.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:21 PM
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239, 251: Way back in the archives, I told the story of my ancestor Philander, shot to death after being found with his cousin's wife:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_6973.html#567449


Posted by: astronomer | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:25 PM
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Iron Maiden was Agamemnon's favorite heavy metal band. This eventually got him killed.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:25 PM
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I think I also once mentioned here the best ancestral name of all, in my wife's family: Experience Bliss


Posted by: astronomer | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:31 PM
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Our ancestors had low hanging fruit, but not in ways we can understand today.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:46 PM
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Our ancestors understood things their ancestors had, but not in ways we can understand today.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 1:55 PM
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Probably the last on-topic post, but I noticed in this LGM-linked article someone named "D'arcy," and found Darcy is not an unheard-of name: according to the SSA, it entered the charts 1949, climbed up until it peaked in 1969, and finally dropped off in 1994. Was the 40's when Pride and Prejudice entered standard English curricula?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 7:22 PM
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Oh, but that popularity is as a female name, so who knows.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 7:23 PM
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I know two women named Darcy.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 7:26 PM
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I know, like, 30 goddamn women named darcy.

no, I was just pretending.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 8:44 PM
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I know a Darcy as well. She is a professional bassoonist.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10-30-11 9:07 PM
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295: I know a Darcy who knows a professional bassoonist.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 2:34 AM
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Actually a professional con/trabaso/onist, of whom there are very few indeed.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 2:34 AM
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Was Experience Bliss a contemporary of If Jesus Christ Had Not Died For Thee Thou Hadst Been Damned?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:08 AM
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My grandfather was named Oscar, which I would dearly love to name a kid, but it would be a little odd to be a not-Hispanic Oscar in these parts and then there's the Grouch.

I am especially fond of Puritan-style virtue names. I would name Oscar's brother Forthright, given my druthers.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 2:36 PM
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A girl could be Verity.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 2:38 PM
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Forthright and Verity? LOVE it.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 2:42 PM
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I have a friend with a 3-year-old named Oskar. She also has a 1-year-old named Olive, who is the second of two toddlers I know to be named Olive.

My dad's dog is also named Oscar, and it is very disappointing that when they got a cat they did not name her Felix.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:03 PM
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A man named his son "Breech Loading Cannon" after serving in the Revolutionary War. Likewise, "If Jesus Christ Had Not Died For Thee Thou Hadst Been Damned?" had a surname--"Barebone." He was known to some as "Damned Barebone."


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:06 PM
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Crap. 303 was me. I think I became aware of those cases in reading Albion's Seed, at Megan's recommendation?


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:07 PM
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Not my recommendation; I've never read it.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:13 PM
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There were some really out-there names in Albion's Seed, like a woman named ffly-Fornication, but when I looked to confirm them on Google Books, they were from 19th-century sources that made me wonder if they were made up back when we were all about making fun of the Puritans.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:18 PM
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305. Huh. Well, it was amusing. Long, though.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:21 PM
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And just think--your recommendation is so strong that even a malattributed one carried the day.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:26 PM
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In that case, I recently enjoyed a Young Adult book called The Wikkeling, for a relatively novel bad guy and nicely accessible protagonists.

I'd love Young Adult recommendations, btw. I'm looking forward to fireside reading soon.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 10-31-11 3:40 PM
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