I love names!  The one trend I notice with young parents today is they tend to want unique names.  It’s funny, because growing up with a combined 17 siblings, DH and I craved normalcy.  Anything that didn’t scream “here comes that kid from the very large, very poor Catholic family”.  Interestingly, the names in our two families seriously overlap.  We’ve got Marys, and Pauls and Michaels and Daniels and and and…
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The other thing that’s so interesting to me is how a name gets popular.  I’d love to know how Isabella Sophia and Sophia Isabella started sounding like a good combination.  It cracks me up when people are like, “but we picked it before it became popular”.  Really, or maybe you just had your kid before the other people who liked it got to use it?    Because out of nowhere, peoople started naming their daughters Isabella Sophia and Sophia Isabella like it was the only name in the girl name lexicon.  And to my 45 year old ears, it’s just not that pleasing a name.  But for folks in their mid 30’s, it sounds beautiful.  What is it?  Was it a fascination with Isabella Rosselini and Foster Grant commercials? 
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And I’m serious.  I hear the name Emily (which I don’t have) and I think what a “pretty sounding name.”  And it sound pretty to lots of us people in our 40’s, but it’s dropped off the SS name index for popularity.  All I can think is there was some Hallmark movie or afterschool special where the woman’s name was Emily.  And lots of little girls in the 70’s (including me and my sister, who had a stuffed cat named Emily) fell in love with the name.

I’m not Catholic, so I don’t encounter it as often as I otherwise would, but I just cannot get used to seeing MY name used as an adjective. Just feels weird. ‘Got through this post otherwise unscathed, though, as none of my boys goes by the name Cooper, and my girl has a lovely Old Testament name.
Sincerely,
Marian

That or name them something else that’s easily manipulated into a derogatory nickname on the playground, thus ensuring a lifetime of chances “offering it up”. Hugh, Dorcas, abbreviations for Richard, and other come to mind.

They will either develop character or a mean right hook. Either is a useful asset in adult life.

” Alternatives: Something that sounds nice, but is actually the name of a LESBIAN.”

People keep asking me if my daughter is named after a famous lesbian, and my response is “No, she is named for her great-grandmother.”

Hubby and I didn’t even think about that celebrity when choosing Ellen’s name.

My husband always says, when we are deciding a boy’s name, “Just nothing that will force him to carry his milk money in his sock.”. This is coming from a child of 12 who had parents that went with VERY traditional Irish names along with the spellings (“mhdhvhbh”). Us? Well, so far w/ 6 named and 1 on the way, we are ALL over the place! Maybe you should add one more category: “Don’t box me in!” Catholics! lol

Alliteration works well for some families. Growing up, I went to school with a whole family of E names (even the mom and Dad) their liscense plate read “EEEEE”. Fun!

Married to a man who likes “original” spellings. So far, we’re okay, but it’s getting harder to make sure I get to the paperwork before he does. God help the child who has his father fill out the birth certificate form. I can just see him saying, “No it’s PEATURRRR”.

Simcha, I think you’re really funny, but it is sometimes hard to tell when the line is crossed into actually insulting people.  It’s not kind to make fun of people by name, even celebrities. As for the name “Mary”: we named our daughter “Mary” out of gratitude to God after becoming Catholic.  We had no intent of smooshing our superior piety in anyone’s face. We were brand new Catholics and did not feel superior to anyone. Some parents might misuse the Blessed Mother’s name in that way, but many of us do not.  I also thought it was unkind to mock the hymns the way you did a few days ago in your other article.  Just please be careful where you aim your devastating wit, because the pen (even the virtual pen) is mightier than the sword.

Found you through Cam (A Woman’s Place) and nearly choked on my coffee as I laughed.  I didn’t even mind the incredible burning sensation as I sputtered on through the rest of the article.

Brilliant… absolutely brilliant.  :)

Thank you for this!

Very interesting.

I think one of my favorite activities is sipping my coffee while reading your latest blog posts. So funny!

Courageous Grace, was she talking about alternatives for girl names?  I thought she was talking alternatives for boys names.  Ellen on a boy, then.  I may have read incorrectly though.  I love the name Ellen!  (which is actually a form of St. Helen)

Awesome! Most interesting names I saw when I was a PS teacher were Talon (back when it was also a car), L’Areal (a new spelling, but named for the shampoo-really), and Disney (great name for a girl growing up in the Orlando metro area).

But there are several St. Irenes, aren’t there? Just google it.

Another category…revert regrettables, like when you came up with names you thought were cool in your early 20’s and then come back to the Faith in your 30’s…well, with our first girl I insisted on this name I got from a British rock stars wife but my DW would have not of it (thank God). We settled for an anglicized version of the same name. It happens to be a popular Disney cartoon princess that came out a few years later and also became quite popular. Incidentally, we named our 2nd girl after the wife from a popular 80’s TV series. But it happens to also be a virtue so it worked out.

I work in a pediatric clinic. People get so offended if their child’s name is mispronounced. If they’d spell it phonetically, it would save everyone, including the child, a lot of time and irritation.

My friend teaches elementary ed in NC and he has a student named La-a.  That’s LaDASHa.
My mom makes sure we each have a “y” in our names. Not sure why exactly she chose that letter, but all 8 of us have one.

Why do you call Zoe, Anastasia and Renata “pro-life concept names” (whatever that means)? They are the names of actual saints—although Renata/Renée are feminized versions of the male saint’s name Renatus/René.

I hope that I could be forgiven for giving a child a Medieval occupation name if the name also happens to be my maiden name.  I’d probably give it as a middle name, but it’s not untraditional in the English speaking world to keep family names alive that way, even if it’s not ideal Catholic practice.  There would have to be a saint’s name added to it as well, of course.

So funny. I’ve had plenty of children with unpronounceable, or pronounceable but hideously misspelled, names pass through my classroom.

On another note, I would LOVE to see the article where you made fun of hymns. Somehow I must missed it. Can you post the link to it?

“Hans Kung Makepeace.”

Oh, dear.  That made me laugh!  So glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that.

Hey, what’s wrong with Moses?

I have to say, no matter what you name your child it will upset someone. Either you’re too original, a hippie, a old foggie, or something else. I also think that anyone who is offended that a politician or celebrity gave their child the same name as yours is delusional. I read on a Catholic board one day that someone was so upset and offended that President Obama had a daughter named Malia which is a Hawaiian form of Mary because she had named her daughter that. Really, are we supposed to check with every single other person on the planet before we name our kids?

My solution, no one knows the name anymore until after it’s on the certificate. And it’s not up for debate. If someone asks why we named our child that my answer is only this: we liked it. Get over yourself… :)(and the people I say it most often to: my in-laws who like to mention how Catholic the names Shelby Clare, Joseph Patrick, and William Christopher are…ignoring the facts that two out of the three kids have family names from their side of the family).

We have a family tradition of girls with Old Testament first names and Marian middle names.  With our fifth girl I was starting to get stumped, but luckily a helpful friend, or was it relative, suggested “Jezebel Medjugorge”.

Gwyneth: whats with Apple? What were you and Chris thinkin!

Simcha, you can totally make fun of celebrities when they name their kids after fruit. Or when they name their children “Moxie Crimefighter”. Hysterical article. I personally like to choose early church doctors (Bede, for instance) for middle names for my kids so that I’m not being overly superior and yet people know that I’m a real Catholic. The kind that reads Aquinas. (Not me, though. My husband. Aquinas is kind of boring.) After I added “Xavier” to my son’s name I happened to come across a name trend article where the most popular new name for boys is “X’Zavier.” Gah. So not only are we mispronouncing the name, now we’re spelling it to intentionally highlight our inability to properly pronounce an X. I’m so proud of our literate culture.

Brooke, NOOOOOOO!  I lived that.  My sisters and I all had the same initials.  Had the conversation over and over.

I used to work at a pediatric dental office…ohhh the names…we were berated once for mispronouncing La-a, ladasha (la hyphen a, haha) and we had awesome names like, “lemonjello” and “orangejello” pronounced, le-maunjell-o and or-aungjell-o…i dont think i have the time to copy all the crazy ones…but those were the ones that stood out the most.

And all you people spreading the urban legends, knock it off.

http://babynamewizard.com/archives/2004/9/oranjello-and-lemonjello
http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp

Gwynnie

Our latest grandson is named Cooper. It is my mothers surname. I am decidedly not offended by your comments. BTW, Gwyneth,(speaking to the above post)as the mother of a Micah,Abigail,Jonathan,David,and Aaron, I love the name Moses. I have a friend who named her son Noah, and her dear grandma, kept calling the boy Moses. How sweet is that?

Of course, my daughter’s name is Irene (after her gradnmother) No good coloring pictures or medals(poop!) but: one or two good icons.

My grandsons name is Cian (KEE-an). I thought my daughter was carrying on the Irish tradion but found out she got it from a novel she read about vampires. My grandson is named after a vampire!

My name used to be not very popular, but then Christinas started popping up all over the place. Awkward saint moment- St. Christina the Astonishing was the only St. Christina listed in the book at CCD. THERE is a wild story and a coloring page you don’t want to have. It’s also awkward when your namesake is the patron saint of insanity.

For Daria (just read that comment): yes there are plenty of St. Irene’s, but the big Greek Orthodox one is notable for returing the icons to the church and the older (3rd? 4th?) century one was martyred in an uninteresting way.  So no good coloring pictures. And I’m still looking for a medal…..
And my daughter does by Ivy, anyway.  Long story.

Ack! “goes by Ivy…”
And I missed the mocking hymns column too

Names are fun.
A word of caution though: Having a Peter Thomas Blaise, he is a Doubting Rock of Fire of a personality, so you might caution that what you name, in some cases, they take as approval to become.

Love it!  Especially since we went the very traditional route first with a Mary, and then ended up in a battle with some members of my family over our son’s name, which derives from Sanskrit - oh, the paganistic tendencies dh and I have!  He’s nearly 3 and one person still has not given up the fight… sigh.
I used to teach at a residential treatment center.  I had a Clistia (sweet [white] girl, no clue where that name came from); LaVere (normal for a black kid, not so much for the nerdiest white boy you ever saw); lots of Crystals but all spelled quite differently so no fear of mixing up papers ever; Lester was oddly popular though I’ve never encountered it elsewhere.  We also had a Brandy, totally normal name, except her sister’s name was Tequila…  The girls tended to have names I wouldn’t pick anyway, but the boys ruined a lot of names for me: James and Matthew, for example.  After certain students, you’re just stuck with the association.

I love digging through the Martyrology to find improbable saints’ names, like Adauctus, Basilides, Callistus, Donatus, or Pancras. But, I’ll probably not burden any of my future children with them. If you want unique AND Catholic, those are some of the best.

Great article, as always.

@Courageous Grace—we’ve run into exactly same issue with “did you name her after [Famous Lesbian]?”—Our Rita Mae is named after her great-grandmothers, not Rita Mae Brown, about whom I knew nothing until after we’d decided on our daughter’s name.

I don’t understand why people insist on alternate spellings for otherwise normal names. It’s worse when they use alternate spellings for not-normal names. Too many last names are used as first names now. I, personally, can’t stand names like Bailey and Riley…they are surnames in my experience. But when you spell them “Bayleigh and Rylee”...well, you are just torturing those poor kids. They will get misspelled and mispronounced for the rest of their lives. And what is wrong with names like Beth and Rose, Bill and Rob? What is so wrong with giving your kid a traditional name with a traditional spelling?!

My wife never lets me pick the names.

For my first son, I wanted something strong, but Catholic: So I picked, “Thundar”! 

She didn’t see the Catholic connection;  you know, God makes Thunder, therefore thunder must be holy, so therefore the name “Thunder” would a holy name reflecting the power of God.  Right? But naming a kid “Thunder” would be silly, so I chose “Thundar” instead - cause it’s totally different.  But, alas, no dice.  She did agree to a strong name and picked: “Melk”.  “Because it is from Malachi and that seems strong.”  I thought that “Melk” sounded weak for some reason.  We named him: Ed.

For our daughter, my wife wanted Martha, but I said, it would be more holy if we named her “Monstrance”.  Wife said, no because our baby was born at 11.3 pounds, it might confuse people.  So we ended up with “Mothra” (we’re lepidopterists), but the priest said no.  We had to go with Edwina. 

For nicknames they go by Eddie and Weena.  Sigh.  (But it’s okay - their middle names are Thundar and Monstrance!)

What about baby names assigned while Mom is half-anesthetized or in ecstasy in the delivery room? - Placenta, Ny’Quil, etc.

Perhaps the poor kids given certain of these woeful names will live extraordinary lives of grace and service, and become beatified as saints on their own, thus putting their monikers in the canon for future generations.

“Ecstasy in the delivery room?”  HAAAAAA LOL!  Now THERE is a phrase I’ve never heard before!

Oooh, I do want to add… there is a young man in the neighbouring school district named Urhines, pronounced “your highness”. I kid you not. His mother constantly threatened to sue the schools (they kept moving around the district) because several teachers refused to call him “Your Highness”, opting instead to call him Mr. [Lastname]. Almost all of my teacher friends in that district have had him in their class at one time or another, and say he is the most obnoxious and arrogant student they’ve ever had.

My wife nixed Bruno and Ignatius for boys names, but for a girl we decided on Eliza8beth (the 8 is silent).

Wait….What?  I am gonna punch my mom.

After accidentally naming #4 a very trendy name (Abbie), we decided on a traditional name for #5 that seemed to have been out of favor for a few decades:  Lucy.  Now, though, we hear the name all the time! So we went even more obscure, but still traditional, for #6:  Ruth.  Since her birth a year ago, though, I’ve literally heard of four or five other babies with the same name.  Oh well. 

The funny thing is that #2, Beth (Elizabeth) is the one name we haven’t come across in anyone else.  We weren’t *trying* to pick something unique with that one!  Of course, all of our names sound very Catholic, but we weren’t actually going for that, either.  I’m just a big fan of old books.

Grew up with the name John (instead of the far more interesting name my dad wanted to give me) because my mom wanted to make sure I wasn’t mocked at school. Turns out the name she chose means “toilet” and “patron of prostitutes.” You can’t win. Lord help us, we’ve given our children geographic names: Avalon, Caspian, Arcadia, Cyprian. With nice virtuous and saintly middle names, if course.

Love your blog, as always. Keep it up!

There was a kid in my grade school class named, Phil Anders!  Never forget him.  Roving eye on that boy too!

I hope you are joking about those geographic names - yuck!  I prefer names from old Westerns.  Such as: Spitoon, Spurs, Saddle, and Saloon.  Spitoon Saloon would be my choice if I could get away with it.

Hey, it only took 10 comments on the name thread to get to the Le-a urban legend.  No, your friend’s mother did not have this person in class.  See the following for debunking:

http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-one

Here’s a geographic name for you:  How about “Jersey Turnpike”?
“Gotham”?
Why not “Vegas”? or “Miami Beach”?

Don’t forget your horror movie names!  Why is it that little girls can be called Reagan (the name of the unfortunate child in The Exorcist) but I can’t name my little man-cub Damian without people peeling away his bangs to look for the mark of the beast?  Huh?  Damian is a fine boy’s name, and a great saint’s name.  And I’ll be dog-gonned if I’m going to let Hollywood (and the names they give their children) run my life!

@ gwenyth…. I’ve been accused of spreading the urban legend even though I actually met La-a (ladasha).  I was working at a portrait studio and she brought her kids in for a sitting.
Also working there I encountered a little boy named Master. Seriously.  So I’m not too surprised by the Urhines example above.
Sigh.

Actually I was afraid Urhines was going to be pronounced urines…. and I would call him urines if I were his teacher. No way am I calling a little kid your Highness .

Simcha, have you ever visited Baby’s Named a Bad Bad Thing? Seems right up your alley: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/ (note: not a site for those without a sense of humor)

My Catholic baby naming rules are here: http://catholicphoenix.com/2011/06/29/what’s-in-a-name/

I think uber-Catholics should name babies after obscure saints, like Adalbert, Glushallaich, and Willibrord. There just aren’t enough Glushallaichs in the world.

A really bad name can hurt a person for a whole lifetime, from schoolyard taunts to resumes that go straight to the shredder and everything in between.

The best way I can think of to prevent this heartbreak is to mercilessly mock parents who saddle their poor undeserving children with such names. (Extra bonus: it’s also fun!)

So carry on, Simcha…but next time be meaner and more specific. Do it for the children!

P.S. 53 comments so far, and no one has yet fired back with: “Well what about *your* weird name?”

Your commenters disappoint me today.

I always wanted to name a daighter Oh!livia.

Previous comment didn’t make it through moderation, so: Google “urban legend babynamewizard” and the first post that comes up is the “Le-a” debunking post.  If so many people have met her (in elementary schools, hospitals, work, offices, etc.), where is she?  I just don’t believe it.  It drives me nuts that this comment comes up in every single Internet post on names.

Blog Goliard: Nice!

I’m still going to name my son “Moon Unit Edwards”. 

In hopes of raising a saint recognized by the Church.

Someday, God willing, I would be looking down from Heaven with a smirk on my face when I see a church named, “Saint Moon Unit”!

I met La-a in Denver, Colorado.
When I was on jury duty a couple years later, a fellow juror who was a nurse recalled a patient named La-a in the same city..
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I want to name my son Mark and spell it ” . ” or “?”. Or maybe.  .‘s. pronounced Marcus.
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For the record I never heard of La-a until she came into my studio, and she was miffed when I said , “you must be lah ah?”

Some years ago the most popular girl’s name in the US was Isabella

Yeah, I don’t see how you can “debunk” the possibility that people really are naming their child La-a, unless you show some legal document that proves the social security administration wouldn’t allow it, or something.  Heck, I bet some people got the idea from hearing the urban legend.

Last I heard, Urhines was in high school. That was a couple of years ago so he may have graduated by now.

I was out recently and heard another mother calling after her young daughters.  Their names?  Alexis and Carrington.  As in Joan Collins’s character in Dynasty.

JoAnna, I’m so glad somebody else mentioned Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing since that is exactly what I thought of.  I about peed myself reading Diana’s commentary.
Ann: I wonder if there is not some copycatting going on—they may start out as urban legends and then somebody actually thinks, “That’s a great idea!”  (facepalm)
I once read an article about an Australian girl saddled with the gawdawful monstrosity of a name “Talulah Does the Hula from Hawai’i.”  The article was, of course, about someone suing on her behalf for a name change.  It wasn’t in The Onion, I believe it was the usual AP odd news briefs…but I didn’t check the date.

Technically, it should be Lahyphena.  Which sounds vaguely like something from Greek mythology.

I love your posts! Simcha for President!
The Audacity of Humor!

There really should be ground rules.
1.  Nothing that can be confused with a cheese, like Brie or Colby…
2.  Nothing that is otherwise a noun, like Forest, Summer, Autumn…
3.  Nothing that is otherwise a place, like Dallas, Denver, Austin…
4.  No former presidents’ last names like Clinton,Jefferson, Taft…
5.  No names of companies or products like Tiffany, Lexis, Colgate…
6.  No names from soap operas.  Ever.
7.  And be careful how you make up names. As a teacher I had a student named Lemonjello, and my mother-in-law had one named !@#$%.  Soften and lengthen the vowel sounds of each name for proper pronunciation.

Urhines I would pronounce, “Your Hi-knees”.  You know - like “Seemore Hiney”

P.S. the name Simcha is cool as ...ah… heck. Doesn’t really sound weird or funny for any reason.  Just pretty cool.

I had both my children prior to converting, so picking a Catholic name wasn’t a concern at the time. We did decide we didn’t want to saddle our kids with something they would get teased about. So we went with Joshua Michael for our son and Lara Elizabeth for our daughter. Now, I realize that Lara is not the usual spelling. But funnily enough I have a second cousin named Lara so I didn’t realize that wasn’t the ORIGINAL spelling until after the deed was done and i started getting the weird looks about it. And everyone calls her Lora instead of Lah-ra. But whatever. We choose not to be too fussy about it and are teaching her to not worry about it either.

Oh Simcha! We must be at the same point with names!  And a lot of the same standards! hehe.  I literally just spent the last hour or so at Olive Garden with a name book bound and determined to at least get a list written down with possible names for our soon to be 34 week-along baby.

Ahhhh!  I seriously kept my toddler with the babysitter longer just so I could add that to my “errands!” I have a good handful of names that are nice, but just dont’ know if I want to be calling to my kid for the rest of their life. 

Of course of one the top runners ( I really like Adele or Ada) are tainted because it was the name of the nun who was our principal at catholic school- whom my siblings did not like. I like the name, but I do want them to interact with their neice.  The second, well, that’s the name of the suburb to the north in this geographical location people would think it’s weird. 

Next time (God willing) I’m gonna say screw it to not finding out the gender and cut my work in half!

enness - Now *that* strikes me as completely plausible.  I’m just saying, if so many people have met someone with that name, shouldn’t the name show up in the social security records?  They publish everything that has more than five instances in a given year.  Even if they drop the hyphen, there are no “Laa” names.  Just on this thread, someone’s saying they know one in Denver and one in NC.  Well, check babycenter boards and you’ll hear people swearing they met that person in Detroit, Tennessee, Texas, and so on - my MIL swears her friend saw the name on a person at the hospital recently in Kansas, etc., etc.

HAHAHAHAH!

Alright, alright! I’ll give up my fantasy to name our next boy Chrysogonus Polycarp, but only if I can have a Eusibus Clement.

HAHAHA!!!  These are awesome.  My brother taught in inner-city Philadelphia Catholic schools, and he too had a La-a in his class.  These are too funny.

My son has three given names, one of which is a very long Italian family name, but since he only ever goes by the ordinary-sounding middle one (Vincent) nobody has any idea how strange we actually are.

I’m older than the lesbian Ellen, so I have dibs on the name.  I teach and I’ve seen a lot of creative spelling, especially for Michaela.  I had 5 of them in my classes one semester and they all spelled it differently.
I had a Latrina in my class once, but my all time favorite was Ginypher - pronounced Jennifer.

When naming our son, I wanted to name him after saints. We agreed upon Francis for a first name. Xavier was taken by his cousin, so my husband suggested Aloysius for a middle name. That would have been OK if our last name had not started with a “G.”  I didn’t think any kid could survive with the initials F.A.G. I’m not judgmental, but, kids can be cruel. We picked Benedict for a middle name. Some might think he’d have issues being named Francis and would prefer Frank, but he doesn’t. He makes it very clear that his name is Francis not Frank, not Frankie….
Becky-we had library customers named Orangejello and Lemonjello, pronounced just the way you explained it. hmmmm
trs—I would have messed up the name Urhines by pronouncing it “your hinies”, so don’t feel bad.

Too funny!  I so desperately wanted to name my daughter Kateri (it is her middle name as I promised Bl. Kateri I would name a daughter after her for a favor granted.)  BUT!  IT is so mortally mispronounced by Catholics that I couldn’t do it!  It is KAT er ee, not ka TAY ree.  Yes, we got it from the Mohawks on the Canadian reservation where she is buried.  Kinda goes along with the wierd spelling!

A friend of mine once reported hearing a mother call her daughters, named Faith, Hope, and Charity.  My friend turned to his traveling companion and wondered if they had a brother named Justice.

years ago, I met a family in which the daughters were named Caroline, Virginia, Marilyn, and Georgia.  It seemed that their mother was an enthusiastic Southerner.

I’m still waiting for someone to name their son Audifax…

Sitting at an Applebees with a co-worker months ago, we overheard the very pregnant waitress at the next table say that she and her boyfriend were to name their daughter Arahse. Why? Well, “it’s different” and “it’s pig-Latin for Sarah.” It took all of our strength to keep from laughing out loud…. My apologies to lovers of pig-Latin out there.

@Clare: Well done. The middle name is exactly where you should plunk something that’s usually misspelled or mispronounced, or just might strike some folks as odd.

That way, if they grow to love the name, they can choose to go by it. While if they hate it, they’ll still rarely get more than their recommended daily allowance of embarrassment out of it.

My great grandfather’s name was Belcher Retch Hannaford. I assumed he was a colicky, fussy child at the time of naming (1865). Perhaps Irish-Catholic. My sister went to school with a Pansy Snotterly. She married young. A co-worker recently named his son “Dirk Danger.” Poor child will never get a license plate for his tricycle. And in my high school Paula Johnson married Mike Wauge (“woggy”) and became…yes….Paula Wauge.

We had neighbors named Ja-Neen and Ja-zee and Ja-len, so I would believe in a La-a with the dash pronounced. My understanding is that -sha is African, so it is added to many names. In this case, it’s just another type of alternate spelling. Remember when Prince renamed himself a symbol? The book Freakonomics talks about naming and mentions the Oragelo story and also siblings named Winner and Loser.

@Calah: pathetically, I have considered naming a child “Xavier” solely so I can insist on correct pronunciation and force people to learn how to say it correctly.  Does anyone play the x-zylophone? No?  Okay, then!

Agreed about the middle name.  My youngest has the middle name Evangeline - picked as a declaration of faith that this midlife surprise was good news.  People are always a bit startled by that whopper of a middle name on our little girl (her first name is Tess), but I think it’s lovely.  I hope she’ll feel the same way about it and wear it with pride.

Quid est Veritas—You are an inspiration.
In addition to Pancras, the kids could be Armand, Legolas, Ida, Chester, Hart, Hedda, and Neil—representing parts of the mystical body.

@Courageous Grace

The mother probably did not know how to spell “your highness”. 

I had a student submit a paper in a 400-level university class in which she consistently spelled it as “your hinus”.  At first I thought it was a clever indication of someone using a double meaning to conceal his disrespect for the king, which would have been a very nice touch.  Unfortunately, that interpretation could not be maintained throughout the paper.

Thanks to those who mentioned the “Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing” website. Hours of entertainment.

The most profound comment I’ve stumbled across there is this, from page 5:

“You know, I’m really starting to think these folks think words are just a series of sounds bereft of meaning.”

Exactly.

My brother was teasing his fiancee at a family get-together by announcing that their first son was going to be named Wolfgar the Barbarian. We all laughed, she gave him a look, but my mom gasped and exclaimed, “that’s not a saint’s name!” Sigh.

Love this—and the comments were just as wonderful.  My youngest is named after one of the evangelists.  But at least once a day, someone walks up to him and intones, “I am your father!”

My college roommate was once assigned to help people fill out forms at a government office. She tried not to laugh when she was told how to spell the name of a woman who called herself “Vah-GEE-nah.”

@trs, i have also met “Master!”

I’m gestating #3 and we as usual have no boy names. When we were talking about it the other day, I got a brilliant idea. We should use a ‘countries of the world’ theme! We already have Maria Antonia (Italy) and Henry (England) so, we thought maybe Olaf…Pierre…Hans…Hashumoto….Mao….anyway, we were cracking ourselves up.

Kids shouldn’t be named the same as a town in Texas (Austin, Houston, Odessa, Tyler, etc). The exceptions to that rule are Nacogdoches and the parts that come after ‘San’ or ‘Santa’ (e.g. Jacinto, Anna). There are a few other biblical names I would avoid, the one in Isaiah 8:3 is one of the first to come to mind.

SleepingBeastly, my brother was named John and disliked his name for those reasons you mentioned.  However, since he died ten years ago I’ve been wanting to name one of our kids after him. My husband agreed that John would be a fine name for our youngest kid, as long as we call him “Jack”, which is a traditional nickname for John and has been since the Middle Ages.  I think my brother would have liked his name a lot more if my parents had let him go by “Jack.”

...

And kids can make taunts out of any name. With my name, I got called “Karen the Red Baron” and “Karen the Carrot” after being cast as a carrot in an unfortunate third grade play.  When we were planning to name our oldest, Asher, my mom said it was a horrible name because the kids would call him ‘Asser.”  I stared at her for a minute and said that really, REALLY? That’s the first thing you think of when you hear that name?  Because you thought my name was safe and it wasn’t.

..

For the record, nobody has ever called my kid “Asser.”  Clearly my mother was insane.

Young parents should always choose a very good catholic name for their kids.am so happy my parents christianed my siblings and me with catholic names.OLIVIA,DONALD,AUGUSTINA,DYMPHNA,DAMIAN.

Please post a warning at the top of your columns: DO NOT DRINK tea or coffee while reading! :-D
Keep up the good work!

Denver area, I’ve heard of La-a - could it be she’s not real? I’ve definitely seen Ladaysha.  I’ve had kids in class named “Sir” for the first name.

Charity - don’t take this wrong, but don’t take it so seriously. I’be willing to wager that there is a very large percentage of us reading the NCR that have Mary as some form of our name, or a sister named Mary, etc. In my family all the girls have a form of Mary in their name, either first or middle.  I love the reference to the Blessed Mother. I also love Simcha’s fun article on names - a very fun but serious subject. I do favor traditional spellings! (and reasonably traditional names) and I love a good Saints name!

When naming a girl Meghan isn’t it just more honest to cut to the chase and name the poor child Margaret Mary?

It’s almost her feast day.

Gabriel Fiat- (not the car, the annunciation)
Regina Angelorum- (my favorite painting of mary)
Scarlett Gratia- (needed to give a shout out to Jesus! “red grace” as in the crucifixion)

Gave them “regular” sounding, but strong, first names with the “different” latin middle ones. I actually don’t even like “Regina” by itself but love what it means. Did i pass??? haha

I simply have to use this post as an excuse to vent on this great issue. Prospective parents, please Please PLEASE don’t overuse the “y"s when spelling your babies’ names. It’s really not cool or necessary. I want to weep for these poor children. Particularly, for the boy, Landyn.

Please don’t forget the most unfortunately named saint - “Wipo.” Even though it’s pronounced “veepo,” it would guarantee a difficult life for any innocent child.

I love this.

I have a nephew named Mark. His wife’s name is Esther.

They have five children named: Elijah, Isaiah, Ruth, Jacob and Joshua. He’s the only New Testament one in the group and they are not Catholic, they are fundamentalist Christians. (In fact Mark is half Arab)

; o)

We just named number six, a boy, Blaise Christopher.

It’s certainly a way to know who is Catholic and who is not.

If they say, “Oh, like the saint?” or “Oh, like Blaise Paschal?” They’re Catholic.

If they say, “Hmm. Blaze? Like a fire?” They’re Protestant.

It’s that easy and 100% foolproof.

ad Jesum per Mariam,
Taylor

In one of my first classes, teaching in an inner city school, all of the girls names began with Ma. and were then followed by a second, typical, girl’s name. I went to the counselor and asked what Ma. meant. Silly me….

One year my son’s baseball team had two brothers named Hunter and Fisher.

Let’s hear it for Ma.!

Y’all are some uptight mfers. Someone somewhere had to give a child an unusual name; otherwise we’d all be named Adam or Eve. Unusual names are how we get saint names like Francis. Get over it.

I cannot post here without misspelling something…

“girl names” or “girls’ names”

Sigh….

When my children were young I was volunteering at a Girl Scout Day Camp.  When I picked up my youngest from the child care area another volunteer asked what parish I belonged to. Hmmm, did I have ashes on my forehead?  “How did you know I was Catholic?” I asked, as I gave Mary Margaret a hug.

Anon: yeah it’s rare you have ecstasy in the delivery room. I sure didn’t. However I did have ecstasy in my own home when I gave birth there twice. :-)

On a serious note, it is very disheartening to see people outright lying on a Catholic blog about names they have had personal experience with, when they are right from the pages of the Snopes names myths. LaDASHa? Sigh.

Loved this post though. Still laughing about naming your boy Mary. But we do fall into the “stupid” category even and I can still laugh. I like Gaelic spellings of names and all of my kids will have to spell them for everyone, forever. :-)

Also, lemonjello… right from snopes.

It’s pretty unlikely a woman old enough to walk into a portrait studio would have had a parent who who heard a recent urban legend and named her that name. And that’s all I’m saying. I’ve had people I know look me in the eye and swear they’ve known some of the other Snopes names too.  That nurse in Denver you met who “recalled” a patient?  I suppose it’s uncharitable to say she’s lying, so let’s assume she is misremembering.

I have to say it’s always amusing when I’m passing back exams in class:
Me: “John, Rebecca, Ryan, [pause, head scratch]”
Student: “Yeah, that’s me.”
-
It gets to the point where I actually think of my students ‘that kid who’s name starts with a Q”. (Hey, it’s better than “guy with the mohawk,” or “guy who sits next to guy with the mohawk.”)

I went to school with a kid named Fardi Mellonballer. Put that in your pipes and Snopes it.

In our parishes baptism class of 8 couples we noticed two trends -
1)  4/6 new baby girls all had the middle name of Ava/Eva; by the last person to tell the name of their girl you could tell they’d come into class thinking they’d hit on something original and were a bit deflated.

2) What happened to parents actually agreeing on both names?  5/8 couples admitted - “We named him/her “blank1-blank2” because, well, my wife liked blank1 and we thought blank2 sounded good” (remember this is the same group that all ended up with the same “original” middle name).

My husband and I left feeling a little smug, our sons name is rooted in family members on both sides, strong saints to study in school, strong means and double/triple checking of possible nicknames and questionable people from history.  The best question we found ourselves asking was “How does this name sound coming after Dr., Lawyer, Professor, President, etc.?”

Molly, I think that’s a great idea. I know my mom said that she named me Alexis (this was in 1976, so pre “Dynasty”) because she thought an Alexis could grow up to be anything.

We have a new baby girl, and we chose the name Natalie. I thought it was very pretty and feminine, yet wouldn’t sound silly if she was “Dr. Natalie” one day :) (My husband liked Katie, but while it’s an adorable name, I refused to have my daughter be a 50-year-old Katie one day. Also, it sounded way too cutesy with our last name.)

Oh, oh, stupid, over here!!  I still love my daughter’s name, but it’s a variation of Mary that is rarely pronounced correctly (figures, since the spelling of my name sends registrars and dmv employees into apoplexy, apparently my family has a hard time doing “regular”).

Another awesome post!!  LOL

The “Baby Name Wizard” Laura Wattenburg once explained that names seem to become popular out of the woodwork based on geography.  People in a location will grow up with similar cultural influences that play-out in their baby-naming.  I am a transplant from Kentucky now living in Illinois, and all of my kids’ names are way more popular in KY than IL so here they seem more unique.

There was a girl in my Catholic high school class named Shalon, pronounced “shall-un”.  But new teachers always wanted to call her “shuh-lawn”.  Her older sister was Danette.  Then we had a Shaleen and a Kaydrian.  Everyone in the school was white or Vietnamese.

On my Catholic side of the family we had Fabiola, Petronella, and Matilda.  On the Protestant side, my grandmother was named Golden Eloise, my grandfather Roy had a twin brother named Coy, my uncle was named Roney (intended to be pronounced “roe-knee” but he goes by Ronnie, and my mother’s name is Ruby Eugenia (she goes by Jean).  My mother said she would strangle me if I named any child after her.  If we ever had a boy we thought we would like to honor my husband’s step-grandfather, but his given name is Gool.  He goes by “Jack”, and besides being super-popular, Jack paired with our last name could lead to lots of teasing.  We might use his middle name Whitfield as a middle name, but that would still take some courage.

The most unusual name I ever personally encountered was that of a girl in my high school class: Tuesday September. (Guess when her birthday was). We are both late baby boomers creeping up on 50 years of age so this wasn’t a recent trendy thing. I remember her saying that she was baptized as Margaret or Mary something or other (we attended a Catholic school) because the priest insisted upon her having a saint’s name.

I have one daughter; if I had had a second one I would have considered naming her Gianna after two pro-life heroes of mine: St. Gianna Molla and abortion survivor Gianna Jessen.

Oooh, another true story. My mother used to work at Walmart in the fitting room, where all incoming calls go. One of the managers at the time was named Michael Hunt, and went by Michael. A prank caller called once and asked to speak to Mike Hunt. “Oh, you mean Michael Hunt? Let me transfer you.” The caller sputtered “No, MIKE Hunt!” and hung up as soon as Michael Hunt picked up the line.

My grandmother let two nuns pick out one of her sons name.  He is named Maurice Benedict.  He was called Corky.  My grandmother said she never let anyone name her kids after that.

As a teacher in a small rural town: the Lier family had twin children - daughter, Crystal Shandel and brother, Christian Cavel.  this was in the 70’s

Well if we’re going to bring out ALL the urban legends why not the Dover family?  Ben, Ilene, Neil, and Keil. 

Great post, Simcha!

And then there’s the Beach family:  Sandy, Windy, and Rocky.

Somebody back up in the comments was pondering the name Ada. My oldest daughter’s name is Ada (we had all our kids before we were Catholic, so they all have family names. Hers is my great-grandmother’s), and it’s a great name, except that people want to call her “Aida” or “Adda,” and everyone but everyone has had apparently the same remarkable eighty-five-year-old Great-Great-Aunt Ada.

She seems to like her name, however—she’s out of the house and hasn’t had it legally changed yet, so that says something, I think. It is unique, certainly not a name many other kids her age have (and she missed the whole “Ava” thing by a good fifteen years).

Her middle name is Katharine, which we chose because it was a classic name and sounded good with Ada. She could claim St. Katharine Drexel as her patron, but instead chose St. Gerard Majella, so now she styles herself Ada Katharine Gerard, which is also kind of cool. Don’t forget to leave room for those confirmation names!

Thank you!  As a former public-school teacher (deal with it, people; I was in Viet-Nam and was voting Republican before you were born) I well remember the cycles of trendy names.  In the 1980s’ morning roll call could be something like this: “Heather…Misty…Brian…Heather…Mystee…Shannon…Misti…Cody…Heather…Brian…Mysty…La’Ro’Shjhaniqua…Heather…Mysty…

I’m not apologizing because no one can find me to hurt me.

My grandma was pure Irish. When I started dating my future husband, who is South American, she found it shocking, exotic and scintillating.  She was getting on in years, and had trouble remembering things, so my Dad thought it would be hilarious to call my boyfriend by a different Latin name every time she was over.  Though she ended up adoring him because of his manners and charm, she still called him that “over the border boy” till the day she died.  I still call him that once in a while.

p.s. Maybe you have already covered this, but what does Simcha mean?  Did you get any flak for that?

For girls “Gemma” is my favorite Saint name—-she was an extraordinary modern saint (died in 1903)...those who don’t know St. Gemma Galgani will fall in love with her when they read the diary and the autobiography that she wrote, both of which have been published for reading online….more info see www.stgemmagalgani.com

God Bless.
Joseph

I have a niece named, no kidding, Lady Bird.

I no longer live in the south but growing up there was a girl named Aqua Netta. Remember the hair spray?

@ another anonymous… I take offense of your declaration that I MUST be lying!
I have no motivation to lie about a story on a Catholic com box.  What would I be getting out of it? 

Here’s how it works… a worker during a different shift took the appointment and filled out the card that said, La-a Whateverherlastnameis.  A few days later, I’m working, see the appointment card and wonder at the name. She walks in and ask if it’s Lahah… and she’s suitably annoyed with me even though she ought to be annoyed with her parents!
And now you think a health professional in the same city is also lying?  (and we just happened to be on the same jury—two people who wouldn’t lie to get out of jury duty.. .but we’re gonna lie about La-a!!!???)
Could it be that the nurse was on shift when La-a delivered the kid she now needs portraits of?  (I think La-a was late 20s—but let’s face, she only needs to be 14 to have a kid.)

I’m sorry Snopes is wrong.
And, the Social Security Administration records names that have five instances a year… maybe not that many instances of La-a each year… 

I read Cleveland Evan’s column in the Omaha World-Herald… he analyzes popular names each week…. probably because his momma named him Cleveland.

Our two children who survived to birth are named Mary Ruth and John Michael.  We wanted to be counter-cultural.  I think we succeeded.

Haha the security word is increase76 !

Xavier is getting to be a really common name at our parish school, from grades pre-k to 3, there are at least 7 Xaviers.  I haven’t heard that name mispronounced in years - it’s way too common here (Philly area).
.
Judging by names chosen by my son’s sixth grade Confirmation class last spring, Cecelia will become very popular among Catholic parents in about fifteen to twenty years.

Names not to give a child:

http://digitaljournal.com/article/265401

The incident was all over YouTube.

@Karen:
_
“When we were planning to name our oldest, Asher, my mom said it was a horrible name because the kids would call him ‘Asser.”  I stared at her for a minute and said that really, REALLY? That’s the first thing you think of when you hear that name?  Because you thought my name was safe and it wasn’t.”
*
For the record, nobody has ever called my kid “Asser.”  Clearly my mother was insane.”
_
## OTOH, Asser was the biographer of King Alfred the Great (849-901). The Biblical patriarch is AKA Aser
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asser

Good read!
Re your first Catholic Catholic Catholic, surely that should have read girl: Mary / boy: Mario? :-)  After all, which self-respecting Catholic’s Catholic would even consider naming a BOY Mary?!  That would be tantamount to turning him into a, well, you know, the ‘H’ word…  Unless of course, you named him Mary as his second name.. ;-)

I, and my entire family (Eveantica, Jimachious, Slovisty, and my husband Ed) am offended by this post.

A story by way of warning:
We had great fun referring to our unborn daughter by a really hippy name. None of our parents were very impressed and we enjoyed winding them up. However we never got round to picking a middle name. When she was born, our daughter had breathing difficulties and was rushed to the special care baby unit. We had her baptised by the chaplain as everyone was sure she was going to die. When he asked what the middle name was we looked at each other blankly and then decided that we should go with the name we had been calling her for the last few months. She didn’t die and is now a normal, healthy teenager…with a very hippy middle name. Some day she will have to fill in universtiy and job application forms. Lesson: Choose all your child’s names well before the due date.

Sandmama,

Yes.  Ed IS a strange name.  lol

Apparently, the custom of naming a child whatever you like and then giving them a “saints name” for Baptism has gone by the by?

My cousin Tracy was baptized Teresa, my friend Sharon was baptized Ann. It was normal to ask someone with a non-obvious saint’s name what their baptismal name was.

That’s a good way to name a kid “Hunter” but then baptize him with a good resounding saint’s name.

@Pepin:

“Good read!
Re your first Catholic Catholic Catholic, surely that should have read girl: Mary / boy: Mario? :-)  After all, which self-respecting Catholic’s Catholic would even consider naming a BOY Mary?!”
_
1. “Mario” is from the Roman name “Marius”, “belonging to [the god] Mars”, and is unconnected with “Mary”, which is derived from OT “Miriam”, which is probably derived from Egyptian “Mry Ymm”, “beloved of [the god] Yamm”. Despite many pre-1900 sources, “Mary” is not connected with the Hebrew word “marah”, “bitter”.
2. “Mary” has often been used as a boy’s name, usually under the influence of Italian, French, & other Romance languages. Usually it has been combined with other names, and not been in the first position: Jean-Baptiste-Marie, or Antonio-Maria, but not M.-[name]-[name]. Use of “Mary” as a male name by English speakers seems to be a result of the Italianisation of English-speaking Catholicism in the 19th century; and it seems to appear, with few exceptions, as a name taken in religion.
3. The use of it is a matter of religion as modified by culture, nothing more. There is nothing “H”(!) about it - it may be unfamiliar, but that does not make it morally suspect.

Well Mary may be the perfect “Catholic, Catholic, Catholic” name but at one event where I was asking kids their names few, almost none, had “Christian, Christian, Christian” names.  Secondly, few of the girls had recognizable feminine names let alone Christian names and most of those were either previously considered boys names or androgynous names.  This is a symptom of the post-Christian post-feminine, post-gender specific culture.  It may not be a very good sign for the future nor a very amusing picture of who we are.

N.B. Harriet is not my real name.  I go by it on the internet because it’s the name of one of my favorite fictional characters and I prefer some measure of anonymity.

My real first name is so unusual that I have never met another person with it, and have only heard of a few.  It’s Hebrew for Joy.  (I did some googling to assure that this would not automatically tell all of you what that is.  Lo and behold, there are many Hebrew words for Joy, one of which is Simcha. How about that!)  My parents picked my name because they wanted to name me after my Jewish grandfather who died 1.5 days before I was born, and they needed a name beginning with the same letter because I turned out to be a girl.  (This also meant I wasn’t named until I was three days old.)  It is a Jewish tradition to give a child a name starting with the same letter as the person you want to honor, rather than directly using the name.  My middle name is Marie, named after my great-grandmother on my mom’s side.  It’s really common among girls my age. 

Overall, my parents tried to choose names in keeping with our heritage.  My mom is mostly Irish and French, and my dad is Jewish.  I got a Jewish first name and French middle name.  My brother was named after an Irish saint (even though my mother was still a lapsed Catholic at the time!) whose name began with the same letter as out paternal great-grandmother.  He has a Scottish middle name.  My dad’s family, despite being a bunch of Jews from Brooklyn, loves to give their children Scottish names.

I actually love having an unusual name.  People frequently get it wrong, so I answer to anything even remotely resembling it, but I am also often told what a pretty name it is too.  I also have a hyphenated last name, which I’m not quite so fond of.  It sounds pretty, and fits with the rest of my name, but I can’t wait to get married and be rid of it! It’s so long that it often doesn’t fit on forms.  People often leave out one half or the other.  The first part of it sounds like it could be my middle name, and I’ve even had it hyphenated to my first name!

I noticed the other day at the SSA office that the most common names last year were Isabella, Sarah and Emma, Jared, Ethan and Michael.  So the names of the saints dominate that list, which is a turnaround from the trendy neuter names given to girls less than a decade ago.

Also, PLEASE consider your last name when naming children.  I went to elementary school with a William B. Horney.  He went by Willy.  What were his parents thinking???

I liked my priest’s line about naming children after saints, “I’d rather parents be concerned about raising saints others could name their children after. Of course the best way to raise a saint is to be one.”

Ann, 5 a year?  Well, it does take some pretty…special parents.
Another Anon: Yes, it is pretty uncharitable.  Glad you’re aware. ;)
dB: Paula Waugie made me lol (I can use that as a verb on the interwebs, right?).

hahaha
my middle name is Megan - spelt - M-E-G-H-A-N-N, but they spelt it MEGAHNN on my drivers licence.
Really loving your blog all the way down here in NZ, Simcha.

When I enlisted in the Army four and a half decades ago, I discovered that my birth certificate read “Baby Boy” So-and-so. Apparently, my mother didn’t tell the hospital my name by the deadline for the certificate’s filing, so it was filed using the generic Baby Boy descriptive name. She had to file an affidavit to change my birth certificate names to John Paul, two names which have served me very well indeed throughout my life.

I was educated in Catholic schools during the 50’s and 60’s, so that I learned very early that a girl’s name wasn’t truly Catholic unless it had “Mary” preceding a second name, i.e.,  Mary Louise, Mary Beth, Mary Ann, Mary Frances, Mary Susan, Mary Ellen - you get the picture. Occasionally papal dispensations were granted to scandalously liberal Catholics to name their girls Margaret Mary or Anna Mary, but such outlandish behavior was officially discouraged…

A more serious post script is that I had a law school classmate who changed her name from Misti Jo to Madeleine, because “no one will take a lawyer named Misti Jo seriously.” No matter what you name your babies, I think it’s well to remember that they’ll be adults one day who will need every chance they can get to convince prospective employers that they’re serious and hard working, and a professional sounding name can help them do that.

I love the whole name game. Working as a nurse in maternity, i was always curious to know what the parents were naming their child. I felt it told me a little bit about them. Conservative, rebellious,  trendy, family centered, religious, educated, media centered,star struck , what ever, each name had a story behind it. Some of the names i liked and some i didnt.I never let on if I didnt, trying to appreciate their decision. I would say it outloud sometimes with their last name if i noticed a weird rhyme or if the initials spelt something odd that they may not have realized. A funny story was told me by one of the older nurses, who had seen it all . One patient , who was foreign , didn’t realize our customs, etc. and noticed the baby’s name on the chart said “Female Smith” and yes she thought that we named the babies and so she put “Female” pronounced Fem-al-ee, on the birth certificate. Actually has a nice ring to it dont you think? true story.  If I could add, in choosing ,  one could ask oneself if a stripper would like it as a stage name? sorry to all those Cinnamons out there.

I was raised catholic, but was born after the mandatory saints names had fallen by the wayside.  I do not have a saint’s name as first or middle name.  One of my children has a saint’s name, but only because we named him after my dad and the other does not.  Both of them have names that are pronounceable and easy to spell, but not so common there is more than 1 or 2 in their grade at school.  My daughter has 4 ‘Hunter’s’ in her class of 17 kids.

You are officially the first person EVER to get me to look up, Piblokto Syndrome. Simcha, is there anything you can’t do?

I am confident that my brother, John, and I owe our names to our maternal grandmother who named her children: Glavin, Ora, Arta (my mama), Icel and then apparently ran out of inspiration (the two youngest were Elizabeth and William).

What kind of punishment should society give to parents, especially Catholic parents, who would name any of their kids Ichabod, Ebeneezer, or Amos (for the stingy Yankee publisher Amos Force in The Last Hurrah) or Ayn for their daughter? Such naming constitues a form of child abuse remedied only by first a dose of public shame; then another dose of shame by an eye-ball rolling civil servant in the local municipal town clerk’s or probate registrar’s office. Oh, those clerks can look wicked frosty when they have do the paperwork on this offense. You can hear ‘em mutterin’ all day, “What kind of parents, short of Mr. and Mrs. Moonbeam Aquabuddha who named their kids .....” one week only to change their minds the next? ...” Such clerks and moments make for cheap and rapid cures for global warming. Brrrrrrrrrrr
  While thinking of such possible chilly reactions, albeit justified, I came up with the punishment. Drumroll please: For Ichy’s parents, a full day spent schleping around with either Rand Paul, or Paul Ryan for the parents of Ichabod, and a day’s worth of schleping around with either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann for the parents of little Ayn (the Terrible.) For the final gracing touch, a very liberal probate judge with a traditionalist yen when it comes to picking names for kids. Ohhhh, got the punishment, Michael or Mika in honor of Michael Moore.
  Whatever happened to the good old fashioned Catholic names, the ones out of the NT or at least from Mary’s and Joseph’s family at the time of Jesus birth to the time when Francis, Clare and a host of other Italian saints added more class n’ color? Besides, only a Protestant accountant or future literary criticism professor would name his son Calvin, or Ichabod.

Funny coming from a bird named Simcha(?)...  What decent names have you called your children?  Other than Schlomo and Izak?

Now, this is a story and I don’t know if it’s true, but around here, we tell it as the gospel truth. A co-worker’s mom was a teacher. She finally retired when the principal had a meeting the day before school started. One of the topics was a new student. The principal explained that the child’s name is pronounced “Sha-thay-id” (the ‘th’ as in ‘thing’, not ‘that’). Seriously. Try not to get tripped up by the spelling, which was !@#$%.

So, yeah…we toss around “sha-thay-id” in our family a lot.

My third child is a crackup.  One day when he was 5 years old he decided that his name was not “fancy” enough for him.  He spent a lot of time asking around for different names and finally settled on “Davy” for his new name.  The rest of us just rolled our eyes because “Davy” was fancy but Giovanni Michaelijah was just too plain ;)

Note:  The middle name was a compromise.  I was stuck on Michael and my husband was arguing for Elijah.  I had the birth certificate paperwork in hand but just couldn’t bring myself to leave the middle name blank.  I called my husband from the hospital and offered up “Michael ends with “el” and Elijah begins with “el”, lets put them together so the poor boy has an initial!”

Our other kids are Geoffrey, Elleanor, Greggory, Jocylenn and Fiorella.  They all have two things in common, a double consonant and eight letters long (hence some of the unusual spellings).  Whenever a new baby is announced, all the kids get together and start trying to find boy and girl names to meet the requirements.  It becomes a family affair with mom and dad getting the final say :-)

I have the name of an old Testament prophet and a great Pope. Well, my real name. My pseudonym is of St James and John Locke.

Just don’t call me, “Late for dinner”. 

There.  I think NOW we’ve covered it all.

P.S.  Snopes is all lies.  It’s true.  I read it somewhere from someone who knows the owner and knowa.  (NOW NOW we covered it all.)

After 2 reasonably easy names Garrett (Gary) and Megan, I adopted 2….Mikaelie (forgive me, daughter, but it was THE only name everyone liked.) Mind you, I really wanted Kailie or Bailey and both are more reasonable than Mikaelie. However, she does like her name. The other daughter is Taryn. Both are mildly Irish names for Michael and Tara, but my last two daughters are Chinese. I tell them they are Chinese-Irish. It gets a big HA! every time I remind them. As for me—Jeanine Marie so we get the Mary part in. Thank goodness my parents did not go with Mary Francis or Mary Pat. I also had 4 Catherines/Katherines in my class in parochial school. The nuns used Kathy, Kate Katheryn, and we named the last one Kakie (she liked it, too.)

Charity, please lighten up. Simcha is all about humor which is totally delightful.

I agree with Kristen.  Everyone has something to say about someone’s name (ie not Catholic enough).  NO name is either Catholic or non-Catholic, it’s just a name.  Who cares?! Name your kid what you want your name does not dictate what kind of person your child will be.  Anna your comment “LaVere normal for a black kid” was really inappropriate, as an African American I have never heard this name before.

The craziest name I’ve heard was a guy I met working in OK. His name was Lilcharles from Louisiana.

This is great!  If we ever have a daughter, the only name my husband and I can agree on is Mary Ann.  Haha!!!  We’re not messing around.  If we could, we’d consider naming her Mary Mary.  You know, just to be on the safe side.  ;)  Love it!

Simcha,
Love your post-

Curious—what’s the orgin of your name? Is it a family name?

@Cathy and others who asked:  my name is a Hebrew name meaning joy, gladness, or celebration. 

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcha

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My parents are Jewish by birth, and I was baptised into the Catholic Church when I was about 4.  I wrote about this a bit in this post

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http://www.ncregister.com/blog/next-year-in-jerusalem

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which includes a link to a hilarious article my mother wrote some years ago.

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@Vjekoslav:  Nah, “Schlomo” has fallen out of fashion recently, so we just name all our kids Jewey McJewerson.  We can tell them apart because their horns are different lengths.

Aunts and uncles were named after saints whose feast days were close to their days of birth: Carmela, Unice, Loyola, Adelbert… I guess when you have 16 kids, you have to come up with something for inspiration.
My DH, the ninth baby to Peggy and John, was named after “the cool guy who rides the motorcycle and has a box of cigarettes roled up in his sleeve.”
I took care of Lee-moan Zel-low (spelled Lemon Jello) and siblings, heard of baby named fee-mally (Female) because the mother liked what the nursey nurses had named her… had a patient named Fern Plante, another Mary Merry. I just can’t see doing that to a kid.
And yes, I wanted a Mary. But with my married name, it was a hat-throwing, single gal from a 70’s TV show, and didn’t go over with friends and family. I had thought of Claire-Therese but my husband didn’t do the hyphen thing and was concerned that when we needed to get her attention, she’d be hit by a car before we could get her full name out. Neither Isaac or Jacob survived family scrutiny because they thought we were being too biblical. One family member thought we should use Eaton. Yeah, thought would work on the playground. We settled on names that could be yelled quickly and loudly.

Simcha, I think a few people here forgot that you were drunk.

My wife went to high school with a guy named Jamaican Honke (pronounced “honky”). He was white.

We had a very difficult time agreeing on a name for our daughter, who is now 20 months old.  After much debate back and forth we finally decided at the last possible second on the name Claire Madeline Elizabeth.  The poor girl will be 20 before she can spell her own name.

Hilarious.  I should know.  Being as I am the granddaughter of a Sylvester Harold H., known to all as Bud because [family legend says] he hated his Christian names, and also granddaughter of Cleveland Little W. (not Williams or White or anything else you are going to be able to think of, and O! I am so tempted to tell you the real name so you can really see what I am getting at, but then y’all would google us and we are all privacy nuts).  I should add that grandfather Cleveland went by Big Cleveland because our family also has Cleveland Little Jr. (referred to as Clev’nJunior), and Little Cleveland (Cleveland Little III, I kid you not, and also I am 43 years old and only just this INSTANT noticed that we called him by his middle-name-then-first-name) AND Cleveland IV (always called Mac, and I really don’t know what they were thinking or who was drunk or even what they were drinking at that point). 

Also as a former cake decorator, can I just ask all parents to PLEASE quit naming boys Courtney and/or Dakota, and then getting mad when they come to pick the birthday cake up and it’s been done in pink colors and roses and ribbons instead of construction vehicles or fire engines or whatever?  It’s hard on substitute teachers when we take roll, too.  Thank you for your cooperation.

And thank you, Simcha Fisher, for lettng us get this important issue on the table.

It makes me a little sad that some make fun of the names Ida and Ada—they are both family names (we are Itlian and German immigrants)! OH well..some people are never pleased..especially the ones that claim that “difficult” and “mispronounced” names should be thrown to second or third name position. I say, flaunt that difficult first name and show those plebes who really knows a thing or two! Come on, I grew up with the last name “Rothbrust” (sorry, my dad is the German immigrant, so I got stuck with this ‘doozy’ until I married…ironicly, my new last name is ALWAYS mispronounced). It was always MISpronounced “Roth-burst.” Either way, I grew up thinking that the majority of people just don’t know how to read, or out of charity, needed new reading glasses. My poor husband is named Luigi (he is Italian) and we can all guess why he has been the butt of jokes since he immigrated here to the oh so understanding USofA;). My name is Emma, named after my nonna. Growing up, my name was not popular and I was always depressed because I could never find those bicycle license plates with my name…always Emily..but dang, no Emma. But ever since Friends..darn it..everyone is Emma..it is SO confusing when you are at a store and hear someone yell “Emma!” Of course, I always respond and then see a little 4 year old galavanting up to their mamma. Either way, we went with another family name for our daughter, and seeing that we don’t give a rat’s behind about whether or not other people can pronounce anything, we went with Beatrix…no, not “bee-uh-triks” If you wanna know how to say it, study some latin or a romance language. As a consolation prize, her middle name is Gabriella…so it’s always a hoot when people ask her name: “Beeuhtriks? (sad) Oh…” “What’s her middle name? Gabriela (never pronouncing that geminate “l”)?OOH!” What, as if she is going to please you and go by her middle name instead? Pfft..plebes…

@ manticore

Yes, I know about the Latin Marius connection, but over the centuries in many Catholic countries (try Italy…), parents have been choosing Marius as the male equivalent to Mary.  Was just riding on that…  In fact all Marios celebrate their feast-day on one of the significant feasts of Our Lady, such as the 15th of August…

SORRY, meant have been choosing MARIO as the male equivalent….

Simcha, I’ve got the contest won.  Period.  It’s over.  Nobody can come close.  Worst name ever for a girl, and I swear to God it’s true.  I worked in a hospital once and a young mother decided to name her infant daughter Rectalina.  “Why?”  I asked her.  She said she thought it sounded pretty.  “Don’t you think it’s pretty,” she asked?  “Ummm… do you know what rectal means?” I asked.  “No, I guess not.  Is it bad?”  And the best, I mean worst part, was her last name.  Seriously… wait for it… Brown.

At the hospital I work at (I work for acute care pharmacy) we’ve started refering to the new kids with strange names based on what they should be phoenetically.

You think that name should be pronounced Kay-den?  Nope, you added extra vowels so we call him Kay-A-Den, Kay-Ah-Den or Kay-I-Den depending on the mood(Kayiden), don’t be suprized when we can’t figure out the gender of Peyton just by his or her name, and please don’t get me started on Daziyure (that’s apparently Desire).

Though my ultimate favorite right now is Jazzmen, for a girl… yup that’s right Jazz-men.  Didn’t think that one thru did you?

Very enjoyable to read all of this.  I didn’t notice anyone mention that the Catechism has something to say about this;

2156 The sacrament of Baptism is conferred “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In Baptism, the Lord’s name sanctifies man, and the Christian receives his name in the Church. This can be the name of a saint, that is, of a disciple who has lived a life of exemplary fidelity to the Lord. The patron saint provides a model of charity; we are assured of his intercession. The “baptismal name” can also express a Christian mystery or Christian virtue. “Parents, sponsors, and the pastor are to see that a name is not given which is foreign to Christian sentiment.”

I hope you all had your children vaccinated! This is a story from U.S.A. Today:
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  The largest U.S. outbreak of measles to occur in 15 years — affecting 214 children so far — is likely driven by travelers returning from abroad and by too many unvaccinated U.S. children, according to new research.
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  The finding could highlight the dangers of a trend among some U.S. parents to skip the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine for their children, out of what many experts call misguided fears over its safety.
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.http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-10-21/Unvaccinated-behind-largest-US-measles-outbreak-in-years/50852098/1
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Remember, a Playboy pinup is not necessarily a scientist. And you can thank Andrew Wakefield for the return of Whooping Cough too.

One of my mother’s neighbors was named Samelda…
but in western Pa they pronounced it S’melda…
her middle name was Rose.  Yup, truely…
S’melda Rose : )

I’ve re-read the blog and had a number of therapeutic laughs.

We chose for our children the Chinese names of canonised Catholic Martyr Saints. These are their baptismal and state registered first christian names. They will have ample opportunity to explain why they have obviously chinese names, and that’s because they are named after Catholic saints, as are most people (but who never realise it). Admittedly they are 1/2 chinese, but there are hardly any people of that ancestry around here. It may help people realise that people have died for their faith in recent times and no-where near Europe.

The worst name I have encountered for a child was a sweet little kindergartener at my school who was stuck with the name I’llkillya.  Yes, pronounced, I’ll kill ya.  Evidently there were some anger issues her mother was having with the guy who fathered the child.  Hopefully when she comes of age she will have it legally changed.  We also have twin girls named Daquairi and Tequilla, a girl named U’niquely, and a boy named Sir.  Most of the names have at least one apostrophe, and many have “sha” somewhere in the name.