This sort of thing is why I cringe a little when I hear of someone deciding to give a "creative" name to their baby. ("Ethnic" names excepted. If you want to give your child a name reflective of your culture, even if it's uncommon in the culture where you live, I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with naming children "Apple," or with some of the names that are mashups of a couple names of people in the family that wind up with a distinctly infelicitous sound, that kind of thing)
It can make their path harder. Even kids without names like Marijuana. I've stumbled over my share of "invented spelling" names on the course roster; it embarrasses both me and the student. (And yes, apparently the woman in question has made a good life for herself, and she considers having overcome the stigma of the names a badge of honor. But if it were me? I probably would have been down at the courthouse once I was 18, making that into something like Maria Patricia or some such.)
There are a lot of good names out there - Martha, and Lydia, and Dorothy, and Joseph, and Edward, and Henry that are hardly being used these days.
IIRC, there is a linguist out there with the name "Bambi Schiefelbein." Can you imagine? Being a woman named "Bambi"? It's a wonderful name for a cartoon baby deer, but if you're trying to be taken seriously as an adult woman, I can't imagine but that it makes it harder.
It's just a case, I think, with parents choosing a "distinctive" or "stickin' it to the man" name (which Marijuana arguably would be), of parents thinking of THEMSELVES and not of their child.
(FWIW, I like my given name (Erica). It's not so very very common that you hear it daily, but it's not far out enough to be weird, either. And it doesn't lend itself well to demeaning nicknames. And it doesn't sound like the sort of name an exotic dancer would take for herself.)
1 comment:
The one that always gets me is people who name a daughter "Ecstasy", meaning it in a religious sense and completely ignoring other possible meanings.
I have a fairly high tolerance for odd names. I think where you live and plan to raise your kids is somewhat important. For example, in Hollywood weird names are quite common.
For traditional names I think people should stick to traditional spellings to avoid confusion. Trouble with some names, like Sean (my youngest son's name) alternate spellings have become so common that the traditional spelling is almost considered odd.
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