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

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

[Fzob]

What is wrong with people?

I think pure unadulterated cultural ignorance or stupidity is the only answer.

A few years ago I read in a magazine about the ten stupidest names given kids born in Philly that year. The winner was some poor kid that got the name Shithead. Pronounced Shi'thead. I can just picture his poor teacher the first day of school.

[Moonmad27]

You can find a Social Security list of most popular names for this year and previous ones, but it's not related to individual people. I needed a list of the top 500 or so baby names to suggest as my office prepares birth certificates, and found that Social Security site by Google. As I sign finished certificates, I just feel so sorry for some of the new babies because of their parents' bad choice of names, especially cringing at Britney and any deliberately misspelled names. I guess it's always that way. The lists of past years are interesting - I remember my school classmates were often named Debbie, Karen or Carol, and those names sure aren't high on the list these days.

[vetvetdoug]

I guess Winchester, Remington, Colt, Glock, Springfield and Ruger are out because of the PC componet.

[Fzob]

Future Metrosexual. :)

I don't know. Sounds more like future homosexual to me.

[Qwinn]

A friend of mine also swears that he was once given a credit card at the store he worked at where the last name on the card was F***. My friend asked and was told that apparently this is not an entirely uncommon name in some countries abroad, and he was in the process of getting it changed to Fuch (along with the phonetic change of making it a long u).

Now, that friend wasn't the most totally trustworthy individual in the world, so he -could- have been making it up. But still, I always had to wonder what it would have like to be this guy's friend. What do you say when you see him after a long separation? "Hey, John! Great to see you! How's the wife? How's the little F***'s?"

Still, I think the two worst names I actually ever encountered in my -own- life were both last names for girls that I knew. One poor girl was named Updegrove, which lends itself to about 10,000 different horrible distortions. One open to less creative manipulation, but potentially even more damning, was a girl with the last name of Suchavich.

Qwinn

[sgtbono2002]

Speaking of having an obscenity for a name , how about "Hillary"

[johnny7]

Everyone on this thread is decended from the legendary A. 'Bull' Shitter... IMHO.

[rhema]

I guess Winchester, Remington, Colt, Glock, Springfield and Ruger are out because of the PC componet.

Not if we're truly dedicated to celebrating diversity. We've gotta give little Walther PPK his due, too.

[Bon mots]

25 posts and nobody has mentioned that these are likely hyphenated Americans. I met a black woman once who named her son Dijon, then got mad when people said it sounded like "some kind of mustard..."

Well, DUH.

Guess it just sounded French to her... hey, now there's a name...

[johniegrad]

If I lived in New York, I'd name my son Nosmo King.

[whereasandsoforth]

"I am Woman" Helen Reddy told the audience during a concert at SMU that she 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.

[VeritatisSplendor]

my dr told me about a baby girl in Philadelphia who her husband treated -- the girl's name was Female (pronounced Femalli)-- she hadn't yet been named when she left the hospital after being delivered; her parents saw Female on the birth certificate and assumed someone from the hospital had stepped in and given her a name, and they liked it, I guess...

Mrs VS

[DefCon]

and then there were the two brothers named
le-monj-ello and or-angej-ello ...

[independentmind]

My sister-in-law often encounters disadvantaged children in her job. A few years ago she worked with a set of twins named Princess and Precious.

[laredo44]

My sister knew a family by the last name of Tissue. Now that's unfortunate enough. If you could think of the worst realistic name to give that male child, what would it be? Yes, believe it or not, in their eternal wisdom, they named their child Scott.

I knew a kid whose family name was Pullen. The parents named him Peter.

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

A friend of mine who used to work in a hospital told me he heard of a woman who named her daughter Placenta because she liked the way it sounded. Undoubtedly another democrat voter.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

A friend of mine worked in the Birth Records department of the State a while back - she said you wouldn't believe the names. The best was Listerine, closely followed by Oral Blow! I think I would kill my parents for that...

[Fifth Business]

I met a black woman once who named her son Dijon

Ever meet a LaTrina?

[Xenalyte]

I am Woman" Helen Reddy told the audience during a concert at SMU that she her son's middle name is Dallas. She said he was conceive in Dallas.

So THAT's why my parents named me Backseat Dodge!