The Top 20 Most Popular Baby Names (Warning: Stupidity alert!)

Netscape News ^ | 1/9/04 | anon.

[Rodney King]

I see Dylan is still hanging in there a full 15 years after it was popularized by Dylan on the show 90210. That has to be the record for a stupid name inspired by a stupid TV character.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I was named after my grandfather (Hyman, talk about crappy names)

Used to be a very common name among American Jews-- it was an attempt to Anglicize the Hebrew name Chaim, meaning "life."

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

A few years ago I met a girl named Shanda.

Shanda is "SHAME" in Yiddish.

[madison10]

Maybe the name was after Bob Dylan. ;)

Dylan is an Irish (Northern) name and is not so unusual. In Scotland a "d" is added--"Dyland."

[x]

A few years ago I met a girl named Shanda.

Not a good name: "Schande" (pronounced more or less the same) means "disgrace" in German.

"Delilah" also not a good idea. Apparently it means "amorous" or "flirtatious" -- or worse in -- Hebrew.

Seems like a lot of these unconventional names can be traced back to Celtic or Hebrew roots, though it's not clear how legitimate that is. People may like a combination of sounds and use it as a name. Then babynames.com identifies it with a similar word in a foreign language and gives it legitimacy.

In some European countries, the name parents give a child has to be registered in a list of acceptable names. But American soap operas brought a wave of strange names to some European communities in the '80s and '90s. Some of these names can be kind of low class thing, but the basic mechanism's not so very different from the waves of Jennifers and Heathers in the last generation.

[FeliciaCat]

I love Celtic names. I think Aiden is a strong, sexy name.

I also like Sean, Ian and Connor.

If I ever have a baby girl I would name her Lili or Chloe.

[Big Giant Head]

Bump for the lovely and gracious (and about to pop) Marie.

[yarddog]

I too once knew a girl named Shanda.

It truly was a "shame" that I wasn't thirty years younger because she was a real babe.

It is also a "disgrace" that God gave so many physical gifts to one girl while leaving others with a bare cupboard.

[VermiciousKnid]

It was not so long ago that the Catholic Church would not baptize a child who did not carry a saint's name. Well..that's not quite right. They used to insist that the child being baptized be baptized with a saint's name. You could call him anything you wanted after that, I suppose.

For example, I had a co-worker who wanted to name his son Tyler Fox. The priest said, "Nope. Gotta have a saint's name in there someplace." So my buddy changed Tyler Fox into Tyler Francis, et voila! The baptism took place.

Unfortunately, the church now allows any name to be used.

Regards,

[jimtorr]

George Foreman has the right idea; he named his sons "George", "George", "George", and "George".

Johannes Sebastian Bach had the same idea. He had seven sons, I think it was, and he named them all Johannes.

There may just be something in a name, because all of J.S. Bach's sons were succesfull musicians and composers.

Actually, JS Bach didn't name his last, and least, son Johannes, perhaps because he ran out of middle names. His last son was named PDQ Bach. PDQ was moderately successfull, perhaps because of the family name, but he was a terrible composer.

PDQ is the writer of such works as "The 1712 Overture", "Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz" and "The Preachers of Crimetheus". Who could ever forget PDQ's opera "Iphigenia in Brooklyn"?

[Shanda]

My Mother picked Shanda and I like it but I sometimes wish She had chosen Sandra, and my nickname was Sandy.

My Father wanted to name me Juanita and I am glad they didn't.

[Petronski]

So the baloney about Hillary being the most popular woman in the universe appears to be in error.

With the slight amplification that Hillary is wildly popular with the Planned Barrenhood set.

[x]

Ooops. Me and my big mouth keyboard. I was always the one in school who went on joking and didn't notice that the teacher had walked in.

Shanda is a nice name. Better than Juanita. Much better than Monica. Sounds like your mother did what a lot of parents are trying to do -- pick a name that's distinctive and acceptable and not find out later that all the other parents picked the same name.

Schande/Shande does have bad connotations in German and Yiddish, but so does Tod (death). But then, German names sound funny to us as well. I'd give examples but some German last names are obscene in English.

[Shanda]

No offense taken.

[nmh]

Thanks for the info ... but I'll stick with Biblical names ... Sarah Elizabeth are two women to admire ... unlike some of these trendy misspelled names ... . I find the spelling to be especially amusing ... maybe the parents are too stupid to spell it properly so they rely on spelling it phonetically.

[PureSolace]

Joshua!!! WooHoo! My name is making a come back suckas!!! :-P

[BykrBayb]

....monica? took a dive....

Hahahhhaaaaa!!!!!