Friday, February 17, 2006

Why THAT Name?

I have a love of baby names. I love the history and etymology of names. It fascinates me. I absolutely love unusual, exotic, traditional, classy, classic, beautiful names. But I have a confession. I'm a name snob. I'm actually a HUGE name snob and I don't care who knows it. Of course I would NEVER EVER tell someone that the name they chose sucks unless they ask me directly or I'm posting in a names forum and they ask for opinions. If someone asks my opinion during the naming process, I'm happy to give my opinion. But what you read below I keep to myself in real life.

Trendy names, eh, it depends what they are.

Real names I can handle but when I start to see made up crap like Nevaeh creeping up the SSA.gov charts a little part of me dies. Names spelled backwards are not names. Hearing someone say "Ooh I made up the coolest name, WDYT???" usually makes me cringe in advance of hearing it... so when I hear "I made up Nayleigh, isn't that KOOL?" I'm prepared with my poker face. But inside, I can feel my liver explode. Made up names in general reek of attempted-but-failed kree7tiffitee. Once in a while, a nice made up name comes along but usually they're a train wreck. Traditional names, trendy names, classic names that someone massacres the spelling of drives me insane. I just love that names have a history, and my hands itch when I see someone take a made up "name" like Shyleigh and insist that it means "happy glittery fairies in a forest hollow" because they say so. No, it has no meaning because you MADE IT UP and etiology doesn't work that way.

I dislike most place names unless they were a person's name first such as Georgia, Carolina, Catalina, Virginia and Elizabeth. There are more, but you get the point. But using city & country names like London, Paris, Berlin, India, Persia, Mecca, America, Ireland... awful. Tacky. What's worse than those? Londyn, Parys, Berlyn, Indeeah, Amaryka, Irelyn... you get the point. But what REALLY gets me is that people who use these names have to know how bad they are, and still justify why they're cute.

Don't get me started on "cute" names. Naming a child because a name is "cute" is enough to make me want to claw my eyes out. Cute is great for a baby or a nickname but little princesses and princes don't stay cute forever. At least give them a good formal name to fall back on so that Ms. Snitpick the Office Assistant doesn't have a good chuckle as she sticks Cadie McKinzi Donaldson's job application on the bottom of the pile.

OK back to kree8tiff hijacks of classics. Jessica doesn't need to be spelled Jessyka, Jessikuh, and Jessie is NOT pretty as Jesseigh. Julia is NOT pretty spelled Jewelia. I cried (silently) when I discovered Natalliya and Jordyn in Juliana's kindergarten class.

Even the horrible non-name Nevaeh is horribly misspelled sometimes to make it yuneek and kree8tiff by spelling it Neveah or Nivayah or any other number of horrible backwards-Heavens. Heaven is big on the no no list for other name snobs, but honestly under the right circumstances, it doesn't bother me. If you HAVE to use it, please use Heaven and not Heavyn. If you have to use Miracle, don't corrupt it with Myrackle. It just looks uneducated and trashy on top of cutesy. Sigh.

Don't give your child a surname name, please. A mason is a trade, and trade names are surnames. Some surnames are fine for boys because surnames are masculine. But a girl named Mason or Taylor just irks me. It does. Parker? No, not even for a boy but on a boy it's passable and I won't scream in my head "WTH did you do to your kid???"

Tryndee names bother me a lot. Mackenzie is lost in a sea of Mackenzies who spell their name Mickenzie, McKenzie, MacKenzie, Mackensiegh. Michaela is lovely, but the magic is gone thanks to overuse and seeing Makayla, Mikayla, Mackaila, etc. Do you know I saw a Clowi a few weeks ago? What was wrong with Chloe? Sadly, Juliana goes to school with a male Zoe. Juliana laughed at me when I asked her about her girlfriend Zoe and said "But mom, that's a BOY. It's a boys name!!!" I held my tongue so that she wouldn't run to Zoe and tell him that he had a girls name.

Boys names on girls disappoint me. I cringe when I see a female Ryan, Riley, James, and Michael on a girl. I feel so badly for the future horrors and annoyances that she's going to have to face by being stuck in the boys dorms and constantly correct documents and schools that it's not an M on her application but an F. It seems as if the parents are really saying they wanted a boy so badly they couldn't be bothered with finding a good enough girls name. Or that being a girl makes her weak, so having a boys name will make people think she's stronger than she is. As if a girls name can't be strong AND feminine. Using Ryanne, Rylie, Jaymes, or Mychel on a girl just means she has a misspelled boys name. So sad. There are so many lovely girls names, why use a boys name? Why not use the feminine form of the boys name? Virtually any male name has a female counterpart.

I think the names that make me laugh the most are fruit names. Apple, Cherry, Peaches, and most recently spotted Peanut Butter. Those make me chuckle but it's really hard to take someone seriously when they're named after food. Or animals. I knew a Bunny at my last job. It didn't fit her. My hairdresser has a friend named Bambi, named after her father's favorite STRIPPER. Oh and we can't forget the little girls named Unique, Yuneek, Pryncess, and Buffy. Yes, I knew a woman named Buffy back in the day. Although I have to admit that her name did fit her, big blonde ditz that she was. I've seen Paisleys and Presleys and Brileys and Brinleys and WTH is it with adding ley? What's even worse is Paisleigh, Presleigh, Brileigh, Brinleigh or just switching interchangably with -ly, -ley, -leigh, -lee.

Random words as names, especially in another culture are just so... well I hate that too LOL. Like Cerise. That's French for cherry. Or Blanche, French for white. Aryan, popular with white supremecists maybe? Kylie is one of those word names. It means boomerang in Aboriginee. I'm pretty sure that they're not naming any of their kids boomerang but hey, in America why not? Cultural misappropriation. That relates back to using city and country names as people names and not caring what it means or where it came from or if it has any meaning to the parents.

I also don't get the appeal of names with random capital letters in the middle. Or apostrophes. They don't do anything for the name. They don't change how it's spelled. Yes, some languages have legit names with apostrophes but most don't. RyAnne for instance. Or Ry'Leigh. Grace'Lyn.

Ah well, that's enough ranting for now. I didn't intend to insult anyone, it's just something I'm feeling a need to vent on because, well, I come across a LOT of bad names and BNaBBT is down this week due to site maintenance.

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

I swear, EVERY time I see Myrackle, I pronounce it (in my head) My-Rackel. Or Mackerel (or however you spell that fish's name). Whatever it is, it's NOT miracle. UGH! Thankfully, I haven't run across a Nevaeh, or whatever "spelling" of it the parents have decided to give it. :)
(Wanna know a secret? Before we had Matthew, I *LOVED* the name (name?) amethyst. And I could call her Amy! But luckily, by the time I had girls, my common sense came back to me. LOL.

me said...

SO funny, I'm 6 months pg with my first child, a little girl we're planning on naming Paisley. I did a google search and your blog entry came up...I laughed out loud. So, if we like the name I thought I'd ask your opinion for spellings that aren't annoying or that may scar the child for life. Trust me, we can't stand that -leigh crap (ie, paisleigh) or anything with a Y in the middle of it, so Paysli is clearly out of the question. What are your thoughts? :)

Anonymous said...

the funnyest thing is, you've taken time out of your life to write that shit. you dont judge people on their names you skiprat,
because people have interestin names you start mouthin off? im guessing your proper ugly, have no mates and life on your computer mate.
from england