Brand names: Some Americans are naming their children after consumer products

WORLD ^ | 11/15/03 | Gene Edward Veith

[Redcloak]

"Yes, it's spelled 'Luxury Yacht', but it's pronounced 'Throatwarbler-Mangrove'."

[hispanarepublicana]

My aunt, who is a nurse, was working labor, delivery and postpartum. She was the one who took a new baby's name down, and was stunned when a young hispanic couple named their new baby girl Jezebelle. She had a moral dilemma moment when she didn't know whether it was her responsibility to tell the couple who Jezebelle was.......she chose to stay out of it.

Personally, I have 3 name-related pet peeves.

My 1st pet peeve is when baby girls are named things that would never sound good after "Senator______" or "Governor_______", such as "Mimi" or "Buffy" or "Brittni".

My second pet peeve is when names clash ethnically. "Pedro O'Reardon" "Brittany Garcia" "Patrick Gonzalez" "Cheyenne Kawolski".

My third pet peeve is when kids have names that are misspelled (these also don't look good after "Senator ______" or "Governor _______"), such as "Shyann" for Cheyenne, or "Kodee" for "Cody" or "Britnee" for Brittany.

Personally, I think family first or last names should always be used for first or middle names, because it helps with genealogy records/research later on.

[baseballfanjm]

Charlie Sheen made a very funny quote not too long ago, making fun of how celebrities give their kids weird names.

[international american]

So what's the big deal??

signed,

Snikers M. Zagnut

[JoJo Gunn]

A "people are crazier than anybody" bump....

[Dr. Eckleburg]

The funniest TV bit I ever saw was on "In Living Color." (I think. If anyone knows, please correct me.)

Kids were getting on a summer camp bus and their names were being called out...

"Pepto Bismol?" "Onomatopoeia?" "Chlamydia?"

Needless to say, I never saw it rerun.

[hispanarepublicana]

Alopecia?....Gynolotrimim?

[hispanarepublicana]

Don't you think there should be a prize for the first FReeper to name their kid "JimRob" or "Freeper" or even......"Hispanarepublicana"?

[TheEngineer]

I've met a lot of strippers who were named after sports cars. :-)

[Timesink]

A couple weeks ago, there was a picture of some junior high school's cheerleading squad in my local paper.

There were only six girls on the squad.

Five of them were named Kaitlyn.

But every one of them spelled it differently.

[StriperSniper]

her son's middle name is Dallas. She said he was conceive in Dallas. Maybe these product tie-ins are an extention of that kind of thinking.

I'm sure that is the explination for at least some in this paragraph:

"Sky" might be the name of a nature-loving flower child's offspring (as in River Phoenix), but 23 girls and 6 boys were named "Skyy." This is a brand of vodka. Parents are naming their children after other alcoholic beverages, too. Nine girls were named "Chianti." Six boys were named "Courvoisier."

[Syncro]

Back in that same period, a friend had a daughter named Leaves (he looked out the door and the first thing he saw was leaves, fortunately he didn't see something River left outside the door...) and a boy he named Cranberry.

He also had a dog named River and another couple we knew in Big Sur named their son River. After the dog? They said no but they did get some kidding on that.

When I lived in Texas I worked with a guy named Paul Free.

He named his daughter Fancy and his son Scott.

[wunderkind54]

Always been partial to "toilet brush" and "sink stop" for naming the young'uns.

[TruthNtegrity]

Honest to gosh, my cousin told me the same story -dates from the 50's and 60's in New York. I had to assume it was illiterate Blacks, because the parents were always Blacks.

I've also noticed another trend among Blacks and that is to pick out the strangest names that have never been heard before. I gather a "famous" version of this is "Beyonce" but whenever I talk to someone at Verizon or Cingular, I tell you, I get the weirdest names. Why do parents feel the need to "make up" names for their children? What happened to Sally, Harry, Bob, Dick and Jane for Pete's sake.

The latest weird one was Memorythrice. I kid you not.

[StrictTime]

I thought of Ned's Atomic Dustbin...

[BenLurkin]

"Hotspur" for the boy and "Peasblossom" for the girl!

[TruthNtegrity]

I used to work with a guy by the name of Dan Titsworth. He had actually managed to survive the Army with that name, and one day, he told us that after his Father had died, he was thinking of changing his name - to BOB. He was just kidding of course, and is named........Dan Titsworth, to this day.

Sometimes I have to wonder, where do last names come from? Especially that one!

[BenLurkin]

Two "N"s?

[carpio]

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[carpio]

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