Thursday, March 13th, 2008...12:27 am
#2: Dumb Baby Names
One of the most important decisions for the Best Parent is coming up with a dumb baby name. Best Parents will spend countless hours pouring over popular baby name books and websites. They will also call all of their pregnant friends to make sure their dumb baby name is better.
Best parents are not interested in preserving their family heritage. Unlike more traditional parents, they will not even consider a biblical name, or a name that’s been carried down through generations. Instead, they will choose a name that is “distinctive” enough to stand alone in the celebrity gossip magazines, which they are sure their child is destined for.
| Random location names work just as well for the Best Parent. They are quite happy naming their child after states, such as Alabama or Dakota. Or, after dumpy little desert towns on the California/Nevada border, such as Xyzxyz. |
Best Parents also have no problems plundering native cultures. It doesn’t matter that they’ve never met anyone named Asha or Shilo. These are the names that will look best on their child’s future wedding invitation.
If you happen to encounter a Best Parent whose child has a dumb baby name, you’ll score major points by asking them what the spiritual meaning is.
For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!
96 Comments
June 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
my daughter’s name is laila james….. james is a family name & we just liked laila. thought it was pretty & different, but not off the wall…
June 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I agree so much. I frequent a name site, and the ‘Modern English Name’ section is ridiculous. They’ll Emily spelled Emyleighe , Hayley spelled Haiyliye, and Aiden spelled Aydenn. It’s so annoying.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I nearly broke my tongue a time or two at the medical clinic where I worked. The mother of Angile and Angeli (“On-ja-lay” and “On-ja-lee” – who were two years apart, not twins as their names might imply, thank goodness) got bent completely out of shape if you called her daughters by the wrong name.
My favorite though was a doozie: Kyronnachampagne. All one word. Just like that. No hyphen.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Stumbled upon this and I heard a really dumb (kid) name recently…Draven (he’s now 7 years old). Yep, named after the LAST name of the antihero in the movie “The Crow”.
*sigh*
July 28th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I always hated my name. First because nobody I knew had it, and then because it was a sound effect on the Batman show in the 70’s. I never minded Pamela, but even when I pleaded with my family and friends to call me that, it never caught on.
When I started having kids, I wanted names that were easily recognized and pronounced, but that not every kid had. My first is named Brittany. She is okay on the first two criteria, but failed on the third. My second child is a son,named Cory. His middle name is James, just in case Cory ever goes the way of Leslie. He is 18, and so far so good. #3 is a girl named Kailey Paige-Marie. Except for a lot of people calling her Kiley, it has been a good choice. Next son is Hunter, then Chandler. I was worried people would think we named him after Chandler Bing on Friends. That never happened either. #6 is our 3rd girl, and I had no more girl names I liked. I had a friend with a daughter named Ryan, and I really liked it, and it fit my criteria. So, #6 is Cameryn. The ‘y’ makes it feminine. Our last was another girl, and so it had to match Cameryn. Her name is Tyler.I am sure Tyler will soon go the way of Taylor and become a name you would never give a boy, like Leslie.
I like my kids names and have no regrets. I have a friend whose son told his grandfather that he was going to grow up and marry Tyler, and Grandpa told him he had to marry a girl. LOL.
BTW, I watch a little girl named Preshus, and I see how she is teased. I would love to ask her mom why she would deliberately misspell a common word.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:06 am
Also, the new trend seems to be MANY names. First, Middle, Last just don’t cut it any more. We recently had friends have a baby and give her SIX names. Sooo exotic.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I knew a kid when I was about 12 yrs. old and his name was Harry. Seems normal enough right? Well his last name was Guerila. He got paged to the principal’s office all the time too so it was “would Harry Guerila please come to the office” every few days. Poor kid…he was doomed from the start!
August 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
This site is so racist against white people. Thought I would put in my two cents….at least white people arent naming every child they have Jesus, Juan or Maria. The strange name givers are hands down the BLACK people! At least you can pronounce white peoples names. Why does everything have to start with La-?
August 13th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Okay, so my name is getting to be popular now. When I was little though I had been named after my grandfather which I was never very happy about being a girl. Both my kids are fairly normal with Benjamin and Mackenzie (although her name was supposed to be Rachel until my husband convinced me to change it in a drug induced birthing room moment)
But the best that I have run across was a friend of mine who initially seems to be naming her kids normal names with an Xavier and Logan, but when you throw in her husbands name of Kurt and the fact that her daughter is going to be either Phoenix, Rouge, or Storm and you start getting the picture. Yup, they’re all X-men. But I think her next son who’s name is going to be Madrix Hunter Achilles has the most issues. Madrix is an xman, (obviously) but Hunter is off of wrestling (Triple H) and Achilles is because they like the movie Troy. Sigh…
August 16th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Asha is a Polish name, and a fairly common one at that. Zoe is a Greek name (means “Life”), not made up or strange at all, IMHO. Both are quite traditional in other cultures.
Is Loquatia a traditional name? How about Deshawn? Gotta say, white people may do stupd names, but black people win for weird made up ones!
My son’s name is Jamie (James Michael) and surprisingly he’s always been the only one in his class.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
It’s actually Zzyzx.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Too funny. But black people are so not off the hook here what with the whole “Don’t listen to what the man says, just make up a name” method. A friend of a friend named her kids white names only spelled backwards. Little Semaj is so cute.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 am
I believe that the strangeness of a childs name is directly proportional to the welfare payments the parents recieve. The more “unique” the more aid they receive. I also have another theory, parents who name their child after a far away state, country city etc… have never ventured more than twenty five miles outside of their single wide.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I’m dying over here…
My SIL no lie was teaching middle school and she had a student name “Shithead” pronounced shi-theed.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:01 am
ooh i almost forgot another bad black name: Meconium, because the doctor said as he was born, “I think I see a little meconium.”
Look it up!
September 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
If you are going to give your kid a kre8if spelling, you hereby forfeit all right to griping about people misspelling, mispronouncing, and mistaking little Khennydee for the wrong gender.
Go ahead and name your daughter Ryan Jamez. But don’t give me a hard time if I see it written and assume she’s a boy. Name your son Dnisss, but don’t give me flack because I can’t figure out that you meant Dennis.
I give a pass to names that are actually spelled correctly and gender appropriate SOMEWHERE in the world. So Roisin (pronounced rosheen) is a legit Irish girls name. A hassle for Americans, but a legit name. KayCee just looks dumb.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Is the writer of this article saying Casey is a dumb name? (The picture next to the title) Because there are a lot worse names out there other than casey. But I did laugh really hard when I opened this and that picture was there.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
well i think i will call mi baby darfus chuckle brains so then it will fit mi name princess noffomo king and her baby darfud chucke brains
October 18th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I really feel sorry for the person who has to call out these names at graduation time.He or she will be doing some sweating trying to remember 200 or 300 of these names
October 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
how about abcdef? pronounced abs deaf!!! would the commentor on shithead happen to live in the state of washington? my brother who lives in seattle was telling me about a guy he works with whose kids go to school with both abcdef and shithead
October 19th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
My name is Matthew and I see my name misspelled more often than many unusual names because it is so common and people assume they know how to spell it. My last name is a common English last name and it gets confused with a similar Spanish name (although the Spanish name is often a first name…)
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
i believe in giving my children names that have some meaning or characteristic i wish for them. e.g. my daughter sophia elizabeth which means “wise and devoted to God” and my son alexander emanuel scott(yes, 2 middle names…)which means “the great defender, God is with us, wanderer. (scott is my husband’s middle name he stuck it in) i dont know origins or anything like that, but i do know that my children live up to their names. we should do a little resaerch on the names we intend to give our children because who wants to name their child something they think is creative and exotic only to find out that its the chinese term for “sugar substitute” (oh, come on, that last part was funny!)
October 27th, 2008 at 5:29 am
i love dumb baby names, what’s funny is that the last generation with stupid names are now breeding and giving their kids dumb names. from my local newspapers birth announcments: jayleigh and troyden welcome little tayyanah. awesome. best one i’ve ever heard though is “fantaysya” how much do you want to bet little fantaysya ends up dancing round a pole with dollar bills stuffed in her g-string?
October 27th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Why the debate around what’s a ‘bad white’ or ‘bad black’ name? Or any other nationality, for that matter? This is supposed to be a fun site – at the risk of sounding cheesy, where’s the love?
Someone I know named their son after Shakespeare’s king of the fairies…that kid is going to get a lot of teasing growing up!
October 28th, 2008 at 12:10 am
you are totally right bobicity about the stripper pole. When I was picking names for my daughter, I would announce in by best strip-club-announcer-voice, “Please welcome to stage number one …” Needless to say, there were a lot of names that did not make the cut.
We could not agree on any single name. It was so frustrating. Finally, we had the baby and the hospital told us we had to come up with something so they could put something on the birth certificate. We finally agreed on Mia (Scandinavian) Cosette (French). I always knew I wanted her name to be Cosette (after the lead in Les Miserables) but I admit that Mia, although beautiful, was a bit rushed. Cosette became her middle because Mia rolled off the tongue easier with her last name. Now I hear Mias left and right not to mention the Mama Mia jokes that I am always hearing and a little part of me wishes I had reversed the two names.
Since I had a fairly uncommon name growing up I hated it. I always wanted a common name like Tiffany or Stacie. I especially hated getting called Megan as opposed to Morgan (family name) Leanora (my great-great-grandmothers name). However, as I got older I really came to enjoy my name and was glad that I only knew a couple of other Morgans in my entire life.
As far as taking everyday names and purposely misspelling them, gross. I mean, if you are going to give them a common name, why not at least allow them to get stuff with their actual name on it (ie key chains, door plaques, etc.). As a Morgan, I never saw stuff with my name on it growing up. Do you know how frustrating it would be to see your name, just spelled… right? What, no Moreghan?
October 28th, 2008 at 6:08 am
i just don’t get the ridiculous spelling thing. seriously ITS STILL THE SAME NAME even when you replace all the vowels with y,x or q. riley, rhyly, rhyleh,ryleigh,qhryly. it doesn’t make the name more youneekque, just stupider. there are a least a hundred jetts,jhetts,jytts just in my local area. then all the coopers, hunters and masons, no butchers bakers or candlestick makers though, mores the pity. r2d2 however is a superb name! love the french pronounciation, a twin called ceethreepeeo perhaps?. that would be so cool. shame about mia though, a lovely name but now theres a million of them, it is unfortunately the new maddison (madysyn?)
November 25th, 2008 at 12:55 am
There absolutely are stupid names. My boys played with a girl named Fyness. Seriously. Who does this? Do these people love their children?
Though I’m with others of you… the stupid spelling has got to STOP! Mykkel? What?
I don’t think Dawson or Casey or Sebastian are dumb. Uncommon, yes. But otherwise normal, really. Apple? Ummm, no. I’m thinking there’s a continuum that could be applied to Mary’s corollary (which made me laugh until I cried).
November 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I knew this kid in high school named Ronald, which ain’ so bad, but when you are about 300 pounds and your last name is Eaten the kids will keep saying to you “Hey Ronald you been EATIN (pause) alot.
Why mother, Why?
November 28th, 2008 at 2:37 am
I’m a preschool teacher and I have kids at my school named Aspen, Hagan, Daxx and Dallan (twins), Kimble, Keeva, Conley, Jailey, Brenham, Breckett, and Keller.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:01 am
If one more person names their son Aiden my head is going to blow. The exception would be someone from Ireland with a legitimate family member bearing the same name. I am really convinced that there are more Aiden’s in the world/coming into the world than should be allowed EVER!
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 am
Part of the problem with determining what is a “best parent” name and what isn’t is that there are a lot of reasons to name a kid something–or not to–and it’s not always “best parent”. I come from a very large family with many people who have already taken all the “good” names and I don’t like most of them. I don’t want them to think I named my kid after them! All my favourite names are gone! T_T
So my partner and I decided to go to literature for first names and mythology for middle names (and not necessarily in our own ethnicity *gasp*). *shrug* I’m not white, so I’ll never have to be a “white parent.”
I do agree, however, that there are limits! SPELL IT RIGHT. The world doesn’t need another Hayileeigh or Chamez (pronounced James)! The world doesn’t need kids coming INTO the world with stripper names. And an object, such as an apple, is NOT a name. Next thing we’ll have kids named Britax and Bugaboo–after the status symbol strollers and carseats!
March 18th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Really interesting discussion. I am not American, so the white vs black names doesn’t have the same currency for me. We live in a very multicultural city in Australia, and meet lots of children with Indian, Italian, Irish, Japanese, etc etc names. I really appreciate traditional names, and do try to note the spelling and pronunciation (it is sometimes difficult, and our phone numbers book is littered with jottings of phonetic and correct spellings!).
Interestingly, I have found Chinese-Australians to be amongst the most traditional namers – Grace’s, Daisy’s etc, even though they have some lovely names. I too love traditional English/Irish names (my heritage), but really appreciate the colour that other cultures bring. I can also understand the level of frustration with spelling things correctly – we were very keen on an irish name for our daughter, but realised if WE spelled it correctly, she would be spelling it our for the rest of her life!
As a mother of a 7 year old daughter, what REALLY worries me is the proliferation of “Sharpay’s” we can expect to see in a couple of years. Spiteful me also hopes for some “Chi-wa-wa’s” etc etc.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 am
I have a friend who has 2 children, a boy and a girl. The boys name is Ridge, and the girls name is Larken. Ugh. She is white and a wine-0!!!!!
April 28th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Hey, I’ve got an idea! White people stop giving your kids ‘Native American’ names. You don’t know what they truly mean, you can’t spell them, and you don’t say them right! You’re white, not 1/18 Cherokee. You are blonde, blue-eyed, and pale. Get a grip, idiots.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
For some hysterical examples of this phenomenon, see http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/11.html
My mom’s a pediatric nurse, and tells me since the last set of Star Wars movies came out, she has seen several ‘Anakin’s–I guess they can hang out with the R2D2’s and C3PO’s mentioned earlier? I always wonder, don’t these parents think at all about what these names will look like on resumes in 20 years?
And what’s with giving your kid a relatively normal name, but insisting it be pronounced oddly? My daughter goes to school with an Anastasia–“Anna-STAY-sha”, right? Maybe Stacy for short? Not if you don’t want mom to smack you with a box of gluten-and-egg-free organic snacks! It’s “Ah-nah-STAH-zhee-ah,” “AH-nah” or “STAH-zhya” for short, and you better know it from the first time you meet her!
July 26th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
i just came here for a good laugh & basically all i’ve been seeing is racist comments about blacks especially, whites, indians, and so forth . sure, people do name their children dumb names but that doesn’t identify with who they are . these children shouldn’t be subject to such ignorance ..
one day apple atou shithead is gonna be your employer ; then what are ya gonna do ?
August 9th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
For the record, many cultures (the French, for example) routinely give their children multiple names. They tend to be family names or religiously based. Which category do they fall in? Your criteria are more ridiculous than the names people choose.
October 10th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
my fucking name is mykkel. i will shoot you
October 31st, 2009 at 9:33 am
My daughter is called Erica Gwendoline – Erica because I liked the way it sounds and the meaning (‘eternal ruler’), and Gwendoline after her great-grandmother, a lady now sadly departed (never got to meet her) and much adored by my husband.
Child no. 2, a son, is on his way into the world in about 6 weeks’ time, and top of the names list for us at the moment is Koen, a Dutch name; I guess by some people’s standards that’s a BPE name, but again, we liked the sound and the meaning (‘bold and fearless’). The middle name is likely to be Samuel, after Samuel Hahnemann, the discoverer of homoeopathy – a historical figure I have long admired.
That’s the pattern for me and my husband in our child-naming – cool-sounding first names with an awesome meaning behind them, and middle names after people we rate highly.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:43 am
I this dude in my class, his name is Kid Skyler MacPhail.
Do I win? LOL.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:44 am
There’s this girl in my college her name is Alabama but its spelt Alahbahma.
I almost died laughing
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:08 am
i am black and my name is mischa…
a white name. it is actually kimisha but i will totally go for
*k leb(boy)
*j keb(boy)
*artouee Dee-touee (boy)
*seithray peyouh (girl)
* and shithead!!!!!!!! omg hilarious(girl)
*dazzalioua(girl)
*rozzette(Girl)
*jouliette(girl or boy)
*cora lee(girl)
*rozalee(girl)
*tara liegh (gurl)
*annrie (for a boy or gurl)
Timmithie (boy)
*Tommee(gurl)
*timera (Girl)
*andee (girl)
Roubie(girl)
*J sen(boy)
*marla (girl)
*Nabaela(girl
*Kawlen(boy)
because personallly i love strangley spelt names
May 13th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I hate names like Hunter- where are the Gatherers then?
A fragile boy playing with dolls is not a ‘Hunter’.
I hate obviously generated names like ‘Max Power’ ‘Cocksaurs Rex’ (joke)
‘Hunter Goldman’ or some other ‘noticeable’ or occult\Power\numberology names that Illuminati\ elite parents give their kids because they know for a fact that names affects some life factors.
They won’t name their tots after undesirable professions or pornstars (maybe).
Some parents name their kids using some occult system to ‘destiny guide’ their kids names, for example.
Seriously.