h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have some cousins with the surname of Duck. And, no fibbing, they named their first son Ronald.

He never went out

Unfortunate surnames are a curse. Both Odo and I suffer from not-exactly-great surnames, so I think a complete deed poll might be in order one day.

B

My sympathies

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Have you gone through the rather humourous activity of chopping both your surnames into two halves and then sticking them each others backs and fronts together to see what you get.

MacJack for me

Batting!

B

Ronald Duck. Oh no, poor guy.

Like in Denmark, in Finland there is a law that's supposed to prevent giving names that cause disproportionate grief for the children. I think all the names mentioned here would've gone through, though. I don't think they really bother with names that aren't swear words or pieces of furniture.

Luckily Finnish parents can't fool much around with spelling since the language is written phonetically.

"If she really was 20 I'd be surprised... I don't think Neighbours was that big in 1984."



Sod my memory is rubbish. She was actually called Charlene (I had to check her entry in my phone), which was why I thought she was named after Neighbours. And you're right - I remember there being a Big Thing about Neighbours at school when I was in the first year of the 6th form. That would have been 1986. She might have been a bit younger than I thought - when you get to my age they're all just one lot of fresh-faced children.

A funny on the popularity of certain fad names:

I was at a large gathering of Marillion fans at the weekend and enountered a group of little girls playing together and they were all called - you guessed it - Kayleigh.

When we were at a signing session Mr. Hogarth asked a little girl what her name was. Judging from the wince beforehand and the rolling of eyes after there must have been a large number of Kayleighs amoung the throng. But all spelt the same way I'm sure!

Zantic

>>Luckily Finnish parents can't fool much around with spelling since the language is written phonetically.<<

Actually I just remembered that there is a huge craze of changing all the k's in 'normal' names into c's (it's supposed to be somehow fancier ), so that Annika becomes Annica, Marko Marco, Viveka Viveca etc. Looks pretty stupid when your last name is Tönkkönen.

And of course there are a fair few children named after American soap opera characters.

I guess it often is some sort of individuality. Or just because they've been transcribed from another alphabet and come out in different ways.

I think some people just can't spell though. I know a Jeremy who ended up being spelt Jerome (Je-ro-mee) just because his daddy made a mistake

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According to Fortean Times a massive survey of baby names in the US a couple of years back turned up a girl in Texas called Chlamydia.

Technically 'Marco' (2nd Declension (Masculine), dative and ablative) is more correct then 'Marko'.

There was a bloke in my sister-in-law's year at uni called Jodi. He ended up being put in the female halls. Luckily he was flamboyantly gay so there was no real problems with possible dodginess.

What i don't get is why people think that "celebrities" calling their kids weird names is ok to some extent, but if us "normals" do it we must've been drunk or stoned when we chose the name!??!
I mean, when Jessie Wallace or Kacey Ainsworth are nobodies after leaving 'Enders, will they still be able to justify calling their kids Blossom & Tallulah???? Whats their excuse? I used to be on Eastenders, i used to be famous???????

>>Technically 'Marco' (2nd Declension (Masculine), dative and ablative) is more correct then 'Marko'.<<

How so? In which language?

Another tread in naming that I've come across is people spliting their first names in half, slapping the halves together (sometimes with slight changes), and calling their children that.

For example, I know a Ronecar who is the daughter is Oscar and Rosney.


Geggs

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Latin.

I was having a look for baby names on the internet and came across a website called

www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/badbabynames

which has a fantastic selection of the weird and wonderful things that people do to their poor children! The woman who wrote the website got thousands of emails from strange Americans and their choices of names and she just cuts them to shreds!

I didn't get any inspiration there but I use the site when I'm needing a good laugh.

Then of course you get names like Nigella, Davina and Stephanie which just scream to the world "We really wanted a boy!"

A bit like my RL name then, except they didn't bother to put an 'a' on the end of it.

az