Bad, Hilarious, Or Just Absurd Baby Names

I knew a girl named Malaysia when I was in middle and elementary school. To be fair, that sounds more like a real name. (Also I am willing to give non-white parents slightly more leeway for stupid names because white parents seem to do it waaaay more often)

 

Yes.

 

I've known a few Asias. They've all been black women.

 

Yeah, white Americans especially seem to looooove weird names. I've actually been thinking a lot lately about how cultural identity (or lack thereof) reflects in names…this may be a sign that I have too much free time.

 

And I actually knew a white girl named China, too! We went to high school together, and apparently her dad sold Chinese herbs or something so he named his kid China. She was a really nice girl, but wow.

 

I like the name India a lot. This may or may not be entirely because my favorite book is The Drowning Girl. Has anyone ever known an India?

 

IIRC, that's actually a big part of how stereotypically "black" names came to be in America--black slaves were stripped of their culture, and eventually lost their previous culture, so they built their own. (There's a fair bit of French influence--I think a lot of early slave traders were French or something--which shows in "La-" being a common portion of many of those names, and names like Antoine and such being fairly common among African-Americans.)

I feel like white American names are a lot stupider, though, since a lot of the crazy names really do seem to stem from a desire to name their kids something Special And Unique rather than a lack of cultural identity. And say what you will about black naming conventions, but at least they sound like names and are generally quite pronounceable (and often fairly pretty)--if I had to choose between an African-American name and one of these WASPy names, I'd definitely go for the former.

 

I was in the same grade as an India. She was kinda a bitch

 

please just name your kids kathleen again

 

Another thing I don't get: the use of "leigh" to replace "ley" or "lee" or what have you. Kayleigh, Ashleigh, stuff like that. It always registers like it should be pronounced closer to "lay," IMO? Since "eigh" is generally pronounced like "ay" ("weigh," "neigh," "eight," etc.).

Even worse: I once began reading a book where the love interest's name was Kayliegh. Not Kayleigh, but Kayliegh. Especially inexcusable because her brother had a completely normal and reasonable name--Justin or something, I can't remember--so somehow her parents only decided to give one of their kids a shitty name.

YOU COULD'VE JUST NAMED HER KAYLEE, AUTHOR.

 

@Acey Yeah, the influence of the slave trade on…well, on everything really is both horrifying and fascinating. :/

Anyway, I'm waiting for a trend of white people giving their babies names like Truelove, Degory, Wrestling, Resolved, and Bartholomew again. Embrace the crazy Pilgrim names!

 

My family is friends with a family who seems to like the "normal names, but spelled ~uniquely~" trend - said family has a girl named Allysa, as well as a younger girl named Hayleigh (iirc - the spelling might be even more unique than that, but I think it's "Hayleigh").

 

Name her Cèilidh because you hate your child and England in equal amounts.

 

Bartholomew isn't that bad a name, honestly--definitely not one I'd ever consider, but not terribly cringeworthy, IMO. But according to that list, there was a passenger named Desire, which...no.

 

Bartholomew is one of those names that sounds fine for an adult but you'd have to have a nickname for a child ("Bart", I suppose, which would then lead to years of Simpsons jokes…).

And I'm sorry but if you name one child Desire you better have six more named Death, Dream, Delirium, Destiny, Destruction, and Despair, or you're not trying hard enough. (On the other hand, she wouldn't have to come up with a pseudonym for her porn career.)

 

My mother had a "Perceval" in her class once. His father's name was Lancelot. The first person to notice a bit before the school year began was assumed to be bullshitting.

 

The only one I clearly remember is that Battler complains in the prologue that he constantly has to explain to people that no, his name isn't Sento, it's much stupider than that.

 

I know a pair of twins named Ivane and Ivana. Pronounced Ivan-E and Ivan-A. Like the letters E and A.

 

Not a baby name as such, but a kid at my school goes by the chosen name Ester.

Guess what we started learning about in chemistry?

 

Please tell me the kid's grandfather was named Merlin.