odd names for children?

[MoonCat]

There are some very good baby name books out there (I use them to help make up characters' name) that people can consult if they really want something different. I wonder how many classrooms have three kids named "Tanner", five named "Taylor", four named "Tyler", etc.

[BookstoreEscapee]

"Ich bin nicht allein."

Thanks


I just thought of: one of my friend's named her son Padraic (they have an Irish last name). I wouldn't call it strange, though (actually, I really like it). Just different enough but he shouldn't get teased over it, I wouldn't think.

[kpzra]

My husbands name is Pace,it's always fun trying to have people to get it right. They always want to call him Ace.

Once we tell them "like the picante sauce" they get it.

[Kara]

I had a customer once say to me "that's an odd name" with this little sneer on her face.

And that customer can go die. Your name is pretty.

A lot of people ask me how I came up with my name. A few have shown their nerd roots and asked if it had anything to do with Supergirl. Which it didn't. I don't even remember how I came across it. I read it somewhere when I was a kid and it just stuck with me as a beautiful name. My ex argued sometimes that I should have just tried to feminize my given name, but it's not really possible. And I never liked that name anyway (sorry mom and dad). Although feminizing my middle name was easy (Alena), although the spelling I chose for it is because of an RPG character from my favorite NES RPG.

I spoke with more than a few customers in my customer care days named Princess, Precious, Lovely, Heaven, and Divine. Yeah, unsurprisingly, they didn't live up to their names and were almost ALWAYS the spoiled-little-rich-girl types.

Also, the late George Carlin (NSFW).

[boringscreenname]

Here are some interesting names I've heard while out and about.

Mordecai
Sapphire
Mimzy
Neriah
Zaidan
Khielah (pronounced Ky-eel-uh)
Metallique

[Cazzi]

If I were to ever have another daughter (which is looking quite unlikely) I'm absolutely in love with the name Xanthe. Its Greek & means yellow but I just love the sound of it

[Mishi]

I'm absolutely in love with the name Xanthe.

Rugz has a young cousin with that name

Our two are Jadzia and Kaylee, we gave them both normal middle names which they can use instead if they end up hating their first names or the characters that they're named after. I have to spell both of them out when making appointments, Jadzia's been mistaken for a boy (they mispronounced her name as Jezeniah. She patted the poor nurse's hand with a smile and said "It's okay, boys can have long hair and wear skirts too.") and Kaylee keeps being called 'Kylie'.

[Rapscallion]

Is Phaedra (pronounced fay dra ) Weird ? if so then I am in that category. It's my daughter's name.

In My Sisters Keeper, Anna was short for Andromeda

Memory tells me these are names from ancient classical times. Fine names, and while unusual I wouldn't count them as weird.

Rapscallion

[Jester]

Oh, there are so many I've come across.

Once worked with a girl named Dorcus, pronounced just the way it looks. Apparently it's a Greek name (her parents were Greek, to be perfectly fair), but it just does NOT translate well in the States.

And at the same job, we had a girl named Cher (pronounced "sure").

My friend and his wife named their son Jarryn, and my friend's brother just had a son and gave him the middle name Bear. No, I don't get that second one either.

I know a guy named Millard. He goes by Mil, or sometimes Mike.

I used to have a roommate named Carlin. Yes, that was HER first name. Since her last name was a name that could be a first or last name, she often got mail addressed to her backwards (i.e., Smith Carlin, or whatever her last name was, I can't remember, but you get the idea), and more often than not, stuff addressed to her would be addressed to "Mr." She liked her name, but hated how often people fucked it up and assumed either that it was her last name or that she was a he.

An ex-girlfriend of mine was named Callie. That in itself is not that odd, but Callie was short for Callista. Somehow that comes from the Bible, a word used for a chalice. As she said, "I was named for a cup."

A lovely girl I met from South America was Sollie, short for Soledad. Which she hated, as she thought it was a rather depressing name, meaning "solitude."

Speaking of lovely girls, I know a stunner whose name is Rayn, pronounced just like the weather.

My stepbrother, who is a license pilot and works with airplanes for a living, named one of his daughters Piper. I have no idea how he got that one past his wife. Along similar lines, a guy I know wanted to name his son "Darth" but his wife steadfastly refused.

There's a guy in town I know named Mayti (pronounced "mighty"). Apparently it's a Cuban name, though I've never met or heard of anyone else with that name.

Now, the names themselves are not unusual, but the combination is funny: a good friend of mine's first and middle names are Penni Lane. Yes, her parents really are huge Beatles fans.

These are not on the parents, but I've seen some amusing nicknames, too.
A Renee I knew went by Ray.
A Marisa I know goes by many things, including Mo.
A girl I know whose given name is Christina never goes by that...we all know her as Critter. As she says, "I had four older brothers and the joke was on me."
I also know a girl who voluntarily goes by the nickname "Bubbles." She's far brighter than that name would indicate.
I also know a guy who goes by Chopper. I haven't the faintest idea what his real name is.
And while I do know his real first name, there's a tourist I know who comes down here on a regular basis who goes by Nubby.
And then there were the nicknames of guys from when I lived in the dorms: Goat, Chief, Odie, Square Dick, Chavez, Dallas, Rob (his name was Jonathan), and Tomato Head....though we never called Tomato Head that to his face.

In addition to all of the above, I have in my life met people named Autumn, Meadow, Winter, Yo (though that may be a common Asian name), Ulie, Sanaris,
Tioti, Shiloh, and Tevis.

And let's not forget Abbie Hoffman, who named his son.....america. With the lower case a being fully intentional.

I went to school with a kid named Rhett Butler.

In my third high school there was a guy whose first and middle names were, I shit you not, Harley Davidson. I didn't know the guy myself, but I did lose out to him once for the affections of a lovely young lady, so I can't say I'm a fan of his.

Summer Rayne.

I had a friend in high school (my third high school again) whose name was April. Her little sister was Summer. Their little brother? Cliff.

No, I don't get that one, either.

Also, while these are not weird names, it was a weird thing--when we moved to that town, I met a Hope, a Faith, a Charity, and a Destiny. I took that as a good omen. (And it was....that is still the town I consider home.)

Anna was short for Andromeda...

I actually used to know a girl named Andromeda, but she went by Andi.

Names should have meaning....

Not all names have meaning. Frankly, I think some of the dumber kids' names out there are there because the parents thought too much about the meanings of names. I mean, seriously, my siblings and I all have boring, normal, common names, not one of them with a real "meaning," and we're all good with it.

Sure, Precious Diamond is cute and all, but who's going to take her seriously in the courtroom?

I am sure such a person would go by "P.D." Or they could just adopt a nickname, or actually legally change their name. It's not unheard of. Hell, there's a lot of that that's happened in my own family.

Amusingly, my older sister was originally going to be "Amy," but my mom couldn't picture an adult woman using that name, so my parents gave her a different name. I know several adult woman named Amy, and there's nothing wrong with it, but my mom just thought that, while it made a great name for a little girl, it was not a grown woman's name.

Yeah, my mom is a bit strange. Are you really all that surprised?

...middle names they can fall back on if they turn 20 and decide their names are too odd.

My parents gave me my middle name as such a fallback name, and it can be used for either a first or a last name. That being said, I utterly despise my middle name, won't acknowledge it, and was really happy when the Florida DMV changed their rules about having your full name on your driver's license, and now only require the middle initial. Which, frankly, I'd rather remove from my license as well, but they won't let me.

Yes, I really, really hate my middle name.

And no, don't ask....I won't tell you. Hell, my ex-fiance literally had to BEG me for me to tell HER my middle name.

One of my cousin's middle name is "Nolan." I imagine he enjoys his middle name about as much as I enjoy mine.

And my father's middle name was Milton. Yeah, my family's not the best with middle names. (Actually, both my sisters have very normal, average, decent middle names, but neither one of them seems to like them all that much.)

Amusingly, my stepfather only goes by his middle name, feeling about his first name about the way I feel about my middle name. And no one who wants the continued use of their legs will ever call my stepfather by his first name. I'm fearless, and even *I* won't do it. His only acknowledgement of his first name is that everything in his name and all his signatures use his first initial, i.e., F. Middle Last.

"Tyler"

I dated a woman a while back whose older son was named Tyler. Naturally, a lot of people shorten his first name when talking to him. The reason this is worth mentioning (and makes me laugh) is that their last name is Dye.

[Shpepper]

Memory tells me these are names from ancient classical times. Fine names, and while unusual I wouldn't count them as weird.

Rapscallion

Phaedra comes from the Ancient Greek. I actually got an A on a paper in Greek and Roman mythology in college based on a paper I wrote about the play her name comes from. There are not many people here in the States with her name.

[dalesys]

Phaedra comes from the Ancient Greek. I actually got an A on a paper in Greek and Roman mythology in college based on a paper I wrote about the play her name comes from. There are not many people here in the States with her name.

Here and I was hoping she was the result of Some Velvet Morning.

[AnaKhouri]

Elric

Awesome! Is he rather a pale fellow?

[SummerI]

My name is SummerRaine, my brother is Dustin Storm and my other brother's middle name is Bacardi. Out of my 4 kids only 1 has a "weird" name, the baby is Hendrix

[AccountingDrone]

Awesome! Is he rather a pale fellow?

Not really, sort of medium mouse brown hair, decent tan, brown eyes. Looks like his dad actually =)

And I have a friend with a double middle name that isn't catholic [my catholic friend is R christoper michael for the angel P] whose name is C Roland Falk K. I understand his brothers extra name is Baer. Not sure if the animal name is cultural or familial tradition.

I sort of like it =) I think he is actually lutheran to be honest. I never really ran into anybody except catholics who had a second middle name.

My husbands dad is named Robert Roy <lastname> normally called Rob, my husbands name is Robert Andrew, his family called him Andy or McGrew [no idea ...] and I call him Rob, which sort of confuses the family but I hate the name Andy and so does he ...

[Antisocial_Worker]

One of my friends has daughters named China and Santana, and one of those daughters (I forget which) has a son named Lennon.