To: A certain parent

[Sparky]

All I've got to say is that, since it seems to bother her so much, little Ethan needs a nickname.

Right.

Now.

I suggest:
Sunshine
Daisy
Darlin'
Peaches
Blossom

Pretty much anything girly and positive.

[Norton]

I got -tons- of teasing in school for my name. "Autumn"

I came very close to being named "Cheyenne Autumn", due to my ex-hippie mother. Thankfully my father didn't let that happen. My dad insisted I have a nice Russian name... so he came up with Nicole. Firstly, Nicole is more French than anything, and secondly, we're not Russian at all.

I worked on a job with a guy named Richard Johnson. Dick Johnson eh?

That happens to be my father's name. Thankfully, he always goes by "Rick" or "Richard".

[Shironu-Akaineko]

My dad wanted to call me Jennifer. There were like a bazillion Jennifers already where I lived (well, marinated in mummy's tummy).

My mom wanted to call me Melissa Sue. No.... so very noo....

When I was born she called me Melissa Sue for 8 days, then took a good look at me and went :"....No. Sharon."

And it stayed.

apparently a fat, cross-eyed baby looks like a Sharon.

[Sylvia727]

All three of my birth names were religious. When I was baptized, the bishop even made a point of announcing this to everyone, and I got so sick of patronizing adults telling me what a good little religious girl I was going to be. When my parents got divorced, I went with my mother's (perfectly bland) surname and never once regretted it. To make things worse, my first name means something like "God's soldier"... and I'm no longer a follower of their God.

I had a friend in high school named Kevyn, with a really husky voice, and certain stereotypically masculine habits and attitudes. Caused her no end of grief...she now goes by her middle name of Nicole.

My roomie's name was Raine, from the French for "Queen", but her classmates still chanted "Raine, Raine, go away," and if she trips, out come the rainfall jokes.

So yeah, I'm a huge proponent of "think before you name your kid". But I'm still going to name my kids something unusual, mostly because I hate sharing a name with at least three other people in the room. I think names like Apple or Autumn or Melody are just fine, though. Kids being kids will find a way to torment their classmates no matter what. I got my share of grief from a name that's been in the top 100 girls' names for at least the last 30 years.

[TTAZ]

My name is a common-enough girls name, there's just a million and a half ways to spell it. I was named after my mohter's sister (have no idea why, they hate each other) who was the only other one of this name in the family. However, on my dad's side there's a whole bunch, even though they are all spelled differently. My grandfather got so upset at my mother's gall to add another one of my name to the mix, that he tried to BRIBE her to agree to change my name to Jessica. I am not a Jessica. Just trust me on this.

Mom told him to get bent.

The old man spelled me name wrong on every card, present, list, phone message, etc. unitl I was 16.

And my dad wonders why I don't visit him.

[AnqeiicDemise]

I'm glad I wasn't named what I *was* going to be named.

Ana Maria.

Mom was fine with it... until she found out that name belonged to my father's ex-fiance. The ONLY reason we stuck with Ana is because that was my paternal grandmother's name and they wanted to honor the Gammy I'd never meet (she passed away three years before I was born.)

Needless to say, I *don't* go by my first name. 1) Too common. 2) constantly mispronounced. (Ah-naw. -twitch-) 3)Childhood trauma that stemmed from that name song. I hated it. 4) having grown up in a very traditional Latin home, its the middle name that has more importance anyway. Imagine my confusion when I first set foot into a classroom and heard "Ana. Where's Ana? Ana? Is she absent? Ana Demise? Demise, Ana? Hmm.. she must be absent." "Um.. -raises hand- may I please be called C----? Its my middle name." "Okay, thank you Ana."

>.<

Yeah. I don't really respond to Ana.

[CaroPhoenix]

My husband was named after both of his grandfathers: Byron Zadok (I doubt most of his friends know his middle name). Byron is his mother's father's name, and Zadok is his father's father's name (he was originally going to be called Zadok Byron, but his father's mother convinced him to rearrange the order). Zadok is a name of one of the Judges in the Book of Judges. When I was pregnant & we weren't sure if we were having a boy or girl, I mentioned I wouldn't mind naming our first born Byron. Hubs actually said no, and this is his reasoning: Too many Byrons in his family. Turns out MIL's father was named Byron (that's hubs' grandfather), then there is Uncle Byron (MIL's older brother), then there is Cousin Byron (Uncle Byron's son) and then there is Cousin Phillip (whose first name is Byron, but goes by Phillip - his middle name). My hubs would have gone by his middle name, if it had been anything other than Zadok.

I was going to be Kimberly. But Kimberly Kelly, in my mother's and father's eyes, would have been too long for a little 5-year-old to learn to write, so I became Amy (after they heard the song "Once in Love with Amy").

I have a friend who has a long Italian last name so her folks gave her a short first name. My married last name is long too (10 letters in length), so we went with a name with 5 letters in it. My daughter's middle name is Iraina (pronounced as it's spelled - E-rain-ah). She was named for Irene (pronounced E-rain-ah) Adler - the only woman to ever outwit Sherlock Holmes (and first mentioned in "A Study in Scarlet"). One day (whilst snowed in), we were watching my Sherlock Holmes DVDs of the TV Show (with Jeremy Brett), and they called her E-rain-ah. I fell in love with the name immediately (I also thought her name was pronounced Eye-reen). So that's how Kelly got her middle name.

My mother was named after Marlene Dietrich (the movie actress whose name is pronounced with an "a" at the end and she was my mom's father's favorite actress). She never went by her first name, as a matter of fact, the only time, she ever heard her first name was when she was in trouble as in: <First Name> Marlene! You get over here! So she hated the name.

I had a best friend named Mary Elizabeth. Mary always thought her first name was Mary & her middle name was Elizabeth. Until she was like 11 or 12 and was at the dentist office and they called for Mary Elizabeth <last name>. Then her mother informed her that her first name was Mary Elizabeth and she had no middle name! How about that?

[Evil Queen]

I rather like my name. Plain. Normal. Everyday and kinda dull. It's a bland name with little to no personality in it which is why I'm such an insane character!

Of course my name starts with an A. My sibling and our last name is an S so put up together... and we're A. (&) S. S. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Hey, at least that poor child's name wasn't Moon Unit or Dweezil. I mean, how high does your parents have to be to name you that??

[AdminAssistant]

One of the most common female first names in the 80's: Ashley
One of the most common female middle names in the 80's: Nicole

I was supposed to be Ross, then I was born and it was discovered that I didn't have the right anatomy. My folks got desperate and picked what I think is the most common first/middle name combo in the world. Ashley Nicole. sheesh. At least I have an interesting last name (which I typically go by).

[spookysonata]

This made me literally LOL. Unreal.

http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html

In other news, I had a college textbook authored by one "Dick Hymen". Ouch.

[Titi]

A little off-topic but I got asked by the school district (my daughter is going to start kindergarten in the fall.) when I corrected them on how to say her first name, if they had a typo and when I said no, they asked me if I had spelled it wrong! Um I think that I would know if I spelled my daughter's name wrong.

I got the spelling of my daughter's name (which is Danisa, but pronounced Danisha) from one of my best friends whose name is Kisa, (you can obviously guess how it is pronounced.) who was there for me so much through many things in my life.

[blas]

My ex bf and all of his siblings' names start with "Br"

I dated a guy whose name started with a T, as did all 5 of his brothers and sisters, but sometimes I think parents need to get a little more creative than to have a pattern like "Br" for all the kids.

My parents purposely gave my brother and me very short first names because of how long our last name is. I don't have a problem with my name, except for everything that rhymes with it.

[Andara Bledin]

I know of girls named Harley, and they're proud of their name...

But Harley is a real name. And falls among the either way gender type. Practically any name that ends in a "lee" sound can go either way.

Hey, at least that poor child's name wasn't Moon Unit or Dweezil. I mean, how high does your parents have to be to name you that??

Actually, they both like their names. There was an interview with either Frank or one of the kids, and part of it was to mention that they got more crap about being Zappa's children than they ever did for having weird names.

My brother likes his name, although everybody and his cousin has it. Literally. He's named David. As is our dad. As is our dad's dad. As is one of our cousins. As was one of his best friends who was known to nearly everybody as BD (short for big Dave).

Nekojin has another super-common name, but he was at the forefront of the popularity wave this time around. He's named Jason. While at a party, once, we had three people, all named Jason, sitting side-by-side on a couch.

^-.-^

[Kogarashi]

One of the science teachers at my high school was named Richard Payne. Yep, the students joked with that one.

I'm convinced that kids can make an insult out of just about any name. Just try to avoid giving them obvious material to work with (like the aforementioned Richards).

I'm named after both of my grandmothers. My middle name is Jean, which just happens to be the middle name of both grandmas.

Hubby decided we were going to actively try to give our kids different-sounding names with different first initials for each, largely because of my family. Two sisters and I have names that begin with A, and those two sisters, a third sister, and I have names that also end with A. So if you say our names in quick succession, they sound a lot alike (but are broken up by the fourth sister's name which doesn't have an A in it at all).

I agree that poor little Ethan needs a cute nickname.

Oh, and I think Apple is kind of cute and could work.

[Bagga]

When deciding on the name of our firstborn, I had to keep discouraging my wife from her favourites - mainly because our surname is pronounced "doors"

Katherine Louise? No way. cat doors. loo doors. cat-loo doors.
Stephen? nope. stevedores.
John? Nope. jackdaws.

We named our second son David, and both sides of the family praised us for naming after Uncle David, or Granddad David, or someone. None of whom we had ever heard of - we just liked the name David.