Bad, Hilarious, Or Just Absurd Baby Names

Yeah, culture definitely plays a role. Like, the Japanese name Yuki? Common enough in Japan, iirc.

It means “snow.” It’s literally just the Japanese word for snow—and, as @Artemis noted, Snow ain’t exactly a common name amongst English speakers. But my understanding is that no one would think twice about a Japanese kid named Yuki.

Interesting stuff imo!

 

There's a lot of languages where the common English name paradigm of "might have meant something three languages ago but now it's just a collection of sounds" just. Isn't a thing. In Chinese, for example, every name is a literal word. I think Japanese is a bit more flexible on that front, but names written with kanji still carry a lot more meaning pretty much inherently than, say, the name "Harry" carries to and English speaker. (Medieval form of Henry, from the French Henri, from the Latin Henricus, from the Germanic Heimirich/Heinrich, meaning "home ruler.")

 

I've seen Stormie with an "ie", and I've heard Rain as a fictional goth name but possibly also IRL? And Rainy, though presumably spelled "Raynie" (which my spellchecker recognises as a word! huh), was Rayanne's mom's nickname for her in My So-Called Life.

 

i went to high school with a dude named rayn, which led to a lot of "ryan" typos

 

i went to college with someone who used sunny as a shortening of santino, so weather may not have been the intention there

 

I have a two new ones from tonight:

Thimber
Raishantely

Ridiculous names if you ask me. Especially for The Netherlands.

 

I forget if I've mentioned Tallon, with two L's. Have I mentioned Tallon?

Also, Roben. Robin with an I is a very common name, so having a different vowel in it must result in people misspelling their name a lot.

 

I’ve seen Robyn before but Roben is uh...wow.

 

Also mispronouncing. I would absolutely have read that with a long o if you hadn’t said it was a variant of Robin.

 

.....
........
...........

Jesus Condom. I only wish I was kidding.

 

thinking of weather, my mom knew a family with the last name Showers, and they named their daughter Summer Showers.
Apparently the mom originally wanted to name her April Showers

 

I know a girl with the given name "Jeanne d'Arc". She doesn't have a French surname, and she doesn't go by "Jeanne" - her name is "Jeanne d'Arc".

Unrelated to her, I also met a boy once whose name was something like John-the-Baptist Smith. I didn't think I lived in a particularly religious area?

 

I have a family member named Jeanne d'Arc as well. She's in my grandparents' generation and French, though, so it wasn't an uncommon thing.

 

Maybe he had some French ancestry somewhere? "Jean-Baptiste" isn't that uncommon.

 

That's neat - I hadn't thought about a generational difference. I guess it could possibly also be a name passed down through the family. I wonder, though - did your relative go by Jeanne, or insist on including the "d'Arc"?

Also a very good point. I wouldn't even blink at "Jean-Baptiste", but I guess in English it really threw me off! I'm not used to seeing the word "the" in modern names.

 

I have the impression friends might have called her Jeanne but she'd have been affronted by someone she didn't know well not using her full name.

 

This one fortunately isn't real but I just read a review of a pulp gangster story with a character named Euclid O'Brien. What a mixture.

 

The first name “Ireland.”

 

ran across a guy who did photographs for a book in the 1940s who didn't exactly have a bad name, but he was referred to by initials, and his initials spelled out Y.E.S.
Y.E.S. Kirkpatrick