A Midwestern couple with quintuplet babies had five chances to spell a name right and not burden the kids with an oddly cobbled-together assortment of letters. But lo! It appears that the letters K and Y are like crack cocaine to the Ferrill family, as they have named the children thusly:
Irelyn Kadyn
Kieran Skye
Landyn Konner
Layne Mykel
Drayden Karter
You might be thinking, "But Orange, that's exactly the right way to spell Kieran." Sure, it's a great Irish boy's name. Alas, Kieran Ferrill is a girl.
I can't believe they went with Drayden, when hardly anyone names their kid the more distinctive Kraken. It has two K's! They could always add a Y and make it Krayken. Krayken, Gryffin, Nessye, Boogyemyn—why not?
Updated: Let us also mock pet names. Increasingly, Americans are naming their cats and dogs Max and Jake and Samantha and Emma.
But wait! There's more! According to an NYT article on Jan. 7, the Venezuelans have a fresh approach to naming babies. Mao, Nixon, and Hitler! Backwards-spelled Susej, Rotceh, and Aleuzenev! Willderman and Yasterliski! Yusmery Sailing and her brother, Kleiderson Klarth! The hot-dog vendor who's the father of the last two says some of their siblings' names "came to me in my dreams. Their names will make them special in this life." (Aughh!)
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21 comments:
I love mayking fun of bayby naymes. (Let's see how many ways we can spell Micaela.) Y out on that one!
Perhaps they have an overwhelming desire to be Finnish? I enjoy mocking baby names until I remember that I was very, very close to signing "Sunshine" on all my credit card receipts.
Perhaps a product featuring the letters K and Y featured prominently in the conception and they wanted to pay homage?
Whoever you are, anonymous, I like the way you think.
Moose, Sunshine ain't so bad. I once met a Juniper Sunshine (that's first and last name, grown woman).
Meno, it's hard to beat the popular Makayla for sheer wrongness, but Mykel is definitely a contender.
Ben met another boy named North today. Mr. Tangerine suspects it's a nickname for North-by-Northwest.
My two favorite stories are:
1. A friend from high school who named her first two daughters (not twins) Laura and Ashley.
2. A 5-year old patient I once had named Alpacino White.
By the way, I wonder if she calls herself "Ferrill Mom", bwaaahaha.
Ugh, don't get me started on the pretend names. They make me quake with anger.
BTW, if anyone has good non-trendy, non-ridiculous girl names that don't have an S sound in them, fire away :)
Ken, check out the Baby Name Wizard. The "Name Voyager" Java applet lets you see how a name's popularity has changed over time, so you can avoid anything too popular. Madeline, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Tara or Cara, Margaret, Jillian, Catherine, Julia, Martina, Amelia? You easily can afford to go trisyllabic with a short last name, but then you couldn't use the resolutely non-trendy Oona, Uta, Ena, or Uma.
As someone with a mildly mispelled name, I am very sensitive to all this nonsense. Of course, I unwittingly gave my daughter the same name as the baby on "Friends", the same damn year...
I once met a man named Catnip. He was named after the tea his mama drank to control morning sickness. He carried it well, but not many could have.
Jenni, who can't post with an identity over here and is getting a complex about it.
Oh dear I cannot believe they did that. I mean I can, but still! For much baby naming fun check out: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
With all the y's and k's, the "misspellings" will be more common than the traditional ones. The kids named "Lane" instead of Layne will be the odd ones out.
My real name is spelled perfectly logically, but people assume that my last name is spelled in a less phonetic but more common way. In this country, you can never assume to know how a name is spelled anyway, so the parents might as well go for variations of Mykaylah. I wouldn't, but none of the well-spelled girl's names I was considering (names of friends and family) are in the top 100, and my own name doesn't make the top 1000 for girls (I was named after a friend of my mother's) though is it barely in the top 100 for boys.
My next door neighbor, who works with medical records, for heaven's sake, named her kids Eli and Lilly. In that order.
I just hope I'm around about 70 years from now, when we start naming girls Nancy, Linda, Cheryl and Donna again.
Sara
Yes, but how about Abcde. I kid you not. Ab-si-dee. That's what they call her.
And let us not forget, Chevelle, Mercury, and Dodge (the latter two were brothers) Hi-Ho Silva and his brother Golden.
And Thomas Thomas. Better known as Tom Squared. T2.
People are kwazy!
My brother played basketball against a pair of twins in Manchester Connecticut: Mack and Ernie MacInerny. Actually, I retell that story often, but have no idea if it's true or not. My brother also told me his jock-itch medicine was conditioner.
the actor rob morrow (oh he of Numbers fame)? he named his daughter Tu.
when she's 13, i predict she will try to choke her father in his sleep.
Did you read the chapter in "Freakonomics" about baby names? Very, very interesting (Chapter 6). Another good chapter is the one about what makes a perfect parent. If you haven't read it yet just know you can pick up each chapter and read it alone without reading any of the former or latter chapters, it reads more like very long essays with a chapter number attached to the front.
You must run to your local public library and borrow a copy to read that chapter! Please!
My name is Christine and people ask how to spell it. Lately they default to the "Kristine" way which is odd to me. The name is derived from Christ, a word that nearly every person, if not every person in America knows, so why do they assume that my name would start with Kr?
A family who likes to think they are very religious named their daughter Kristine. I wonder why? Makes no sense to me.
Other odd things, naming more than one child in the home with the same middle name (when there is no significant reason for it).
oh, i really, truely did want to name a boy child Kraken, with Seraphim for a sister... ask anyone who talked to me in HS. I really, really did!
People ask about how to spell my Christine as well, although I've gotten much worse spellings that "Kristine".
My name is spelt Christyne. Not too much of a change, but enough to make teaching others a hassel. (Why in gods name they can't figure out how to pronounce it I'll never know).
I like having my name diffrent though, in a class where there is at LEAST 6 Christines, 8 Christinias, 10 Christophers, and a few Christies thrown in there...it's nice to be a tad diffrent.
I would never subject my child to an horribly spelt wrong name though..an unusual name mabe, but spelt wrong no. ( I swear, my first born girl is going to be name Juniper.)
[please excuse my horrid spelling, I my be in AP courses & be a certified genius, but I can't spell for my life!]
Mayhaps the problem is not with the parents, or the spelling of their childrens names,but with the rest of America who doesn't remember tolerance, freedom, and acceptance. I have a BEAUTIFUL name, Crystal Sea (first and middle)( I have NEVER met another named as myself) and have had unimaginative,nonartistic, boring christian homebodies make fun of it, when their lame names are Joe or Mary, yea...
The name Drayden is UNIQUE and strong, having a scottish background, not unusual or heinous. I feel sorry for the children being born i a changing world stuck with old world ideas and trends. Using a Y instead of and i, oo-ahh, it does make phonetic sense, or following an a, yep, still works, or an e, sure does...
I guess it comes down to your heritage. If your English, George is for you, right? and if your African, lets see, Shanika. And if your Native American(as I am) Dyami or Jerome work best into the picture!!?? Wrong way to think.
I have a son I will bring into this world in late March, and am thinking of unusual, unique, meaningful names such as
Aidan(but I'd spell it Adyn)
Maddex
Jaylen
yes even Drayden is on my list
Madyn
and Matija ( which is slovenic- not wierd- for Matthew)
hopefully some shame creeps its way into darkened hearts and souls of those who'd make fun of babies and their names
Once had two sisters living in my town who had the lovely first names of Poppy and Caraway, yeah you guessed it, last name was Seed. Hey why not bring a smile to a stranger right?
Side note; my brother's named Gruffydd (traditional Welsh name pronounced Griffith) which made perfect sense with my immigrant parents. What I can't understand is my brother chaning it in his late 20s to be Griffin. Might as well pee on yer grandfather's grave.
pugmama
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