Celebaby News: aka "What NOT to name your kid"

[LG.]

Have you ever read the book Freakonomics? There is a whole chapter about unusual baby names and the way popular baby names change every 10 years or so. It was really interesting stuff.

I read Freanonomics, and thought the parts about child naming were very interesting. There was a story about brothers named Winner and Loser (cruel parents) and Winner ended up in jail and Loser (who went by Lou) ended up a cop. Talk about defying your parents' expectations. I think the information in that book about the trends in naming, tracking how certain names went from wealthier families then to low income families, and how some names get "too popular too fast" etc. was quite fascinating.

[nilesgirl]

My husband and I went to TX a couple of years ago and were told this story about a woman who had had a little boy the year before and gave him a really horrible name. I will spell it the way it is pronounced first and then you can probably imagine the way it is actually spelled. It is prounounced Shy-thead (like head with a t) now take out the hyphen and change the y to an i and that is how it is really spelled. That poor child. Now there is a kid who is going to get beat up on an hourly basis.

[Blues Songstres]

He will likely end up in court to change that one if no one intervenes in the meantime. I really don't understand what those parents were thinking.

[VeronicaBelle27]

We should reverse-market that advice to these celebs in US and People, but then again, I don't know if they much care; in the "community" all the children are going to have weird names. Is Pilot really going to be an awful name when he goes to school with Peanut, Apple, and Phinnaeus? To us, yeah, but relatively speaking, maybe not so much. Names like Mary and Andrew would be "weird" for these kids.

I like uncommon but recognizable names myself, names that while not many would find hard to pronounce (or hopefully not mistake for a word, adjective or title), you also don't know 10 others with the same name. I honestly did not know when I named my niece Kayla that it was such a popular name. I took it straight from my "future daughter's names list" where it had resided since I was a DOOL fan in college.

On the subject of ironically apropros names, my mother saw a pshychiatrist for anxiety named Dr. Feir (pronounced Fear).

Also, just as an aside, a long time ago when my dad was in pharmaceuticals he was in the hosptial doing business and heard a page for Dr. xxxxx (our last name).... to be funny, or because the name isn't common, he went to the desk and said I'm not a doctor but, that's my name and I'm here... The woman laughed and said "No sir, Dr. xxx xxxxx" and my dad brightened, saying "Oh! You mean my daughter! She's 13" ... The doctor had my same first and last name.... i guess only funny to me, but if anyone else gets a chuckle, I'm glad...

[AmyKay]

Thats why I picked Chloe, I heard it on DOOL and liked it, and not many people were using it, tho its getting more and more popular. I wanted to name my first daughter Paris, but once Paris Hilton surfaced I was afraid to, and still am actually. Maybe by the time I have another it will be ok, I dont know.

We have a dentist in our area- Dr Kevorkian! He even sells shirts "I survived Dr Kevorkian!"

[MRD]

In the town I grew up in, we had a foreign OB doctor. Everyone in town called him Dr. K as no one could pronounce his name. About 16 years after he started practicing, I noticed that there were a couple boys playing on the local high school football team that had his name. Apparantly it's not uncommon to name kids after the doctor that delivered them, even if the name is unpronouncable and unspellable.

My husband is named after the doctor that delivered him. Which I find weird as my MIL never met this doctor until he delivered the baby, so it wasn't like she saw him monthly for 9 months and developed a relationship that would prompt her to name him that. AND its a very uncommon name and GOOD friends of ours STILL mispell it and still misprounce it.
Well, it's Irvin. Friends call him Irwin and Irving and no one spells it right.
And this was the doctor's last name. It's on his birth certificate.

[schmoo2]

My brother was given the name of the Dr that delivered us, but since Mom was told she could never have children and he did a special experimental surgery (at the time) that allowed her to - I would have too. But it is his middle name. Egon. but his first name is a common one - although we did tease him about his middle name once in a while. and gee, I wonder who would have started that. his bratty little sister maybe?

[VelvetRed]

I met someone once who shared the same middle and last names with his 3 siblings (can't remember the names, though). The first names were A, B, C, and D. He gave me a business card, and I asked what the "C" stood for, assuming that it was an initial. He said "nothing, it's just 'C'", and he told me about his siblings.

Which reminds me that hopefully parents think ahead about what the kid's initials will spell...

[waywyrd]

An engineer I work with has the unfortunate initials of STD. Yeah, thanks, mom and dad.

[brunette trixie]

Pretty much any name that is used on a soap opera is bound to become a popular baby name. I remember when Kelly Ripa was on AMC, her character's name was Hayley. I thought it was so unusual. 2-3 years later and you couldn't find a preschool class without a Hayley in it. lol.