| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Maxwell Smart |
what people name their kids?Number 16 Bus Shelterhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7522952.stm I find the choice of names that some parents give their kids absolutely mind boggling... And from the comments section
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| Brownbear |
At least these are ridiculous on purpose. I find myself irritated by people whose names are plainly the result of parental illiteracy, but who get all huffy when you spell their name 'wrong' (ie correctly).
Barny, Annet, Samual, Kellie, Lucey and Stannley are all names I've encountered in this way. |
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| Lorrainelovesplants |
Kate goes to school with a Mercy, Blue, India, Savannah, Keswick, Sunday.................... | ||||||||
| twoscoops |
There was a team member on University Challenge this week called Mary Kinge, poor love. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
Sounds like something the police would say over the radio... 
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| LynneA |
And yet another reason to ridicule "Gentleman Farmer" Alex James.
Geronimo is more appropriate for a GSD or a bull.
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| Fee |
That's the bit that annoys me, I don't mind how people spell their names or what their names are, but to get huffy because I spell your name how it's supposed to be is just out of order. One that springs for mind to me is Keri, I used to work with one, her official docs said Kerry
Though it does annoy me when people spell Fee as Fi, even though that is how it might be spelled as a shortened version of Fiona. But looks/reads too much like figh rather then fee to me. |
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| thos |
I don't like Natasha - the correct form is Natalia.
Nikita is a boy's name. Mind you, Terri objected to my proposed names for my son Aethelred, Isembard, Cogidubnus ... so we ended up with Harry (Henry Patrick Phillip). |
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| Maxwell Smart |
But how is misspelling a name worse than Dick Harry Ballsley or Number 16 Bus Shelter???? | ||||||||
| Frewen |
I hated it at school when horrible unkind kids shortened my proper name to "fanny"  
It made me really miserable and up until a couple of years ago (when I had chilled about it a bit) I used to insist on my full and correct name being used. Might have made me sound pompous but that was better than that nasty "nickname" 
I'm getting cross now just remembering 
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| Fee |
Can't children be horrible
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| Frewen |
If I ever see them again I'll do damage to them 
(sorry MJ for pinching your evil stare, but I'll bring it back straightaway) |
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| Chez |
I think it's partly fashion, though, isn't it? 'Mercy' is an old Quaker name I think. And 'Fanny' used to be a perfectly acceptable nick-name.
My Ma's given name is Gaye. If Leo had been a girl, I'd have wanted to call him Eglantine Anne Cressida, so I could shorten it to Eg'an Cress. 
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| judith |
How can anyone object to Cogidubnus? It's a nice traditional English name. 
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| thos |
And Royal at that. |
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| Lorrainelovesplants |
My first husband wanted to call our boy Ignatious. Honest to god, I just cant remember what I ever seen in that man.....
AND his mother wanted something equally religious and old for Kate (Caitlin). |
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| Chez |
He'd have had a great career ahead of him as Pope, though 
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| Fee |
A male friend of ours wanted to call his child Indiana if they were a boy, thank goodness it was a girl and she got Emily Mia instead
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| Jamanda |
I don't have a problem with most names. Silly phrases are wrong, but I don't suppose it matters in the great scheme of things if someone is a Lucy or a Lucey. Or a Natasha or a Natalia.
My maiden name was always spelt wrong - you get used to it. And I quite like names like Ocean. |
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| Brownbear |
Silly as the names Raspberry Ripple, Daisy Boo, Noah Elvis (some poor sod I used to know) or Camcorder might be, they don't cause pointless vexation to countless people who are snottily 'put right' on their spellings. The more outlandish names are no doubt quietly dropped by their holders when they reach adulthood, and if not, would probably engender more sympathy than scorn.
Probably doesn't matter much, but life contains enough vexation as it is, without the total being needlessly added to. |
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| Chez |
I quite like Noah Elvis  .
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| Brownbear |
It breaks the unwritten rule of odd names - that the second ought to be something unexceptional like John or Mary or Frank or Sally that the holder may use instead if they prefer. |
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| Frewen |
Noah is quite common now | ||||||||
| Chez |
They come in pairs, though. |
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| Grimnir |
My neice has called her latest child Savannah... | ||||||||
| Brownbear |
Could have been worse. Veldt, for example. Or Bush. |
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| Chez |
I have a real yen to call our next one something Anglo-Saxon, beginning with the 'Thorn' character - an A and an E merged. Arvo is having the yips about it, though; so we might compromise on something Welsh. | ||||||||
| Brownbear |
Aethelstan if a boy. If he hates it he can tell everyone to call him Stan. |
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| Maxwell Smart |
No but they cause countless stress to the poor child growing up with the name - can you imagine the playground abuse they would get from their classmates? When I was young I had kid in my school with the last name of Dink - it resulted in him being insecure and having no friends until he changed schools and changed his name. One can laugh at the snotty person putting them right (wrong?) as being sad - but the kid can't laugh about their own name. |
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| Chez |
I know a really nasty terrier called Stan - odd how that kind of think influences you; but it does. | ||||||||
| Azura Skye |
what would the shortened version of "Number 16 Bus Shelter" be?
(i still can't believe someone has named their child that sentence!) come here Sixteen! Bus, here comes Bus! Now, stop picking your peas Shelter... none of them work for me :/ |
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| Rob R |
Got to be N1BS I reckon. | ||||||||
| Chez |
Do you think they've copied the Beckhams and named the child after it's conception location? | ||||||||
| judith |
Shelley?
Could be worse, it could have been a number 2 bus
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| Rob R |
Probably
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| sean |
Snap trivia quiz: Which fictional TV character had Scarborough as his middle name? |
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| Rob R |
Rigsby? | ||||||||
| sean |
Nope. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
I've heard this before but can't remember... I refuse to use Google too 
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| 2steps |
that's what I was thinking too
Not funny really, stupid and mean. How can anyone actually think it's a good choice? I wanted to give my kids unusual but normal enough names so I have Andrew, Emily and Jack. Didn't work too well as Emily has two friends also called Emily I wanted to call both my boys Jacob (not Jake) but their dad wouldn't hear of it cos it's biblical. what like Andrew?
I really like the name Rowan but at least that is actually a name |
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| Fee |
I shared a house with a girl called Rowan once, she wasn't very nice. |
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| Rob R |
I was in a class of about four Roberts at one point in primary school , but at least there are a few shortened versions, unlike Emily which can't be easy (nice name though).
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| LynneA |
I have a friend whose parents' given names were Fanny and Hyman.
They were known as Fay and Harry. When my cousin had her two daughters she called them Florence and Emily. No major crisis, but my Nan did comment that people might see the names and think they were older than she was. |
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| Frewen |
Em Emz Emmy Mils Milly Lilli Lea ? |
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| Rob R |
Bob Ferris!!
At last I've remembered
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| sean |
Well done you.
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| Rob R |
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| mochyn |
I won't take offence. I've never thought of myself as a Natalia, though: I'm not that formal a person. |
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| twoscoops |
I own a food shop and at one point I had two employess called Sam & Ela. | ||||||||
| 2steps |
Emily used to call herself 'Emmy' when she was little so that's what I call her. She used to get very cross if anyone else called her it but doesn't seem to mind so much now A lot of names I like the full versions and not the shortened. I never call Andrew, Andy as I don't like it really |
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| Erikht |
I proposed, as a possebility only, the name of Kveldulv Fortinbras Hauke-Hageman von und zu Askøy, but was voted down (1 against1 - hardly democratic). |
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| Helen M |
my married name is helen mellin!!!!!!!! and i'm not small in the bust area!!!!!!! and to make it worse so is my sister in law. when naming the wee ones we had to aviod all 's' names ie s mellin. pauls brother steve got called stench through school. i'm not really bothered these days but i did have to wait ten minutes for the insurance guy to stop laughing when i rang for a quote. and i had a friend who spent three years thinking everyone was just giving me a cruel nickname!
in school i was called nell a lot and hated it. i quite like it now though. i think if i started asking people to call me this i would look a little pretentionus paul working in a bank has encountered some fab names. dwain pipe, p hole and p organ. an iona bucket. and my midwife was nurse nurse. |
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| Brownbear |
I used to work woth a woman called Jenny Taylor. She never did understand why people used to find it funny. | ||||||||
| Mary-Jane |
Awww...bless her.
I loathe being called Mary. I once retorted "It's Mary-Jane actually" 6 times during a telephone conversation with a rather dim-witted person who kept referring to me as "Mary". And he still said "Bye then Mary..." at the end. 
I think some people find double barrelled names a bit tricky - which is why I have no problem with people calling me M-J. The funny thing is that a lot of people still think they're being terribly original by asking if they can call me M-J...
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| Gervase |
I avoid any contention by calling her 'Sir'.
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| hamster |
Apparently in Sweden, if you want to call your child something really wacky, they won't let you and instead the registry office will allow you to choose from a list of 'approved' names. | ||||||||
| Lorrainelovesplants |
My previous married name was Lorraine Murnane!
Apart from the mail addressed to Mr & Mrs Mundane, I could have been really cruel and called my kids, Elaine, Wayne, Dwayne, Shane....
I remember when we were going through all the names stuff and arguing with MIL that I cruelly told her that we could consider an ethnic name as I had coloured blood in my not to distant ancestry...her face blanched!!!! |
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| Jamanda |
I still do work with a Jenny Taylor
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| Maxwell Smart |
And I don't get it.... 
EDIT - ok I do now... |
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| marigold |
Took me a while too  .
My real name is Lesley which is unisex (with different spellings), but the kids at my second primary school didn't know that and the teasing I endured then and later (when I got the "Lesbian" taunts at secondary school) left me with a thorough dislike of my own name. Dunno why I haven't changed it, but I've never been able to think of a name I like which hasn't got awkward associations and the older I get the less I care. Plus changing your name is a right fag anyway with zillions of organisations to inform, let alone training your friends and family to use the new one... If I'd had children there's no way I would have saddled them with stupid names. |
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| thos |
I don't quite understand why this thread is all about children's names when the title is clearly about young goats. | ||||||||
| Brownbear |
Children are in league with the Forces of Darkness - they'll taunt anyone for anything. If you hadn't been 'Lesley the Lezzer' you'd have been 'Patricia the pervert' or 'Mary the monkey' or you'd have been mocked for being tall/short/thin/fat/having specs/having spots/being blonde/ginger/brunette/black/Scottish etc etc. One absolutely stunning girl at my cesspit school was called 'Barbiedoll' by the other girls and her life made a misery for years in a variety of inventive ways. |
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| earthyvirgo |
I was at Art College with a girl called Fern. I thought that was quite a pretty name. She had peacock blue hair ... and sometimes pink.
EV |
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| marigold |
True, and I dare say, if I'm honest, I did my share of teasing and picking on other kids for various reasons. I went to "nice" schools, but the playgrounds were still pretty feral places and one survived by whatever means worked. |
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| dpack |
candida
i rest the case |
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| Rob R |
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| Nanny |
my mother's maiden name was bugg so she called herself smith instead....ver old anglo saxon name apparently
i don't get the thing about jenny taylor....is it rude? am i too innocent to know the true meaning? |
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| earthyvirgo |
Took me a few 'goes' Nanny, mispronounce the surname slightly and all will become clear. EV |
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| Maxwell Smart |
Specifically the last two letters... |
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| Nanny |
i have it now thanks
i am a dopey tart |
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| mochyn |
At least you're not a luggage!
I once had a doctor called Dr Reckless. Helena Marigold Reckless. |
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| Ginkotree |
I was christened Penelope but was called penny, and in the days when everything from sweeets to needing a penny for the public loos ,Lady penelope was driven around by parker and my nan remembering when a pint cost a peeny it has been an interesting name to have been given. I got bored and used to asked people to think up new ideas totaunt me with as they got boring in the end.I tend to like or dislike names by the people who have owned them. Sue seems to be a bad name for me to meet. somehow most sues I have met have turned out sad in some way... Sorry if that is your name and be glad to meet a nice one to break the mould. | ||||||||
| dottyspots |
My parents thought they were giving me a reasonably unusual name when they called me Nicola. I know loads of Nicolas now, all aged between 30 and 32 *sigh*. There were 3 (including me) in my class alone at one point and 5 (!) Rachels (various spellings of).
I quite like a lot of old names, Athelstan sounds fine to me. One of my father's cousins called her daughter Chardonnay (that makes my teeth grate a little) and dh has a niece and nephew called Delta and River. We get a lot of comments about my daughter, Ninette Dulcie, but she is named after two great grandmothers. There aren't alot of Ninettes about though. My brother's second name is Leif - unusual here, but my mother is Norwegian. Erik (spelt with a k) gets some comments too (although we have Eiriks in the family, but we dropped the second i as that would just get too confusing for some people here) and Edward is Edward Amund (after my great grandfather). Your name can have a huge effect on your school experience and can effect how a teacher relates to you, due to the preconceived ides we have about names. I'm sure there's been some research done that shows that Elizabeths etc. do better academically in tests (not going to get on to whether tests are the be-all and end-all here, we home-edders, but just as an example) than children with names like Chardonnay. |
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| woodsprite |
I love Dulcie, if I had had a girl child, she would have been Dulcie.
I was given what most would consider to be quite a conservative name but believe me after going through school taunted by "Romeo, Romeo, where for art though..." I soon dropped the t.
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| Erikht |
Erik is a good name for a boy. Boys should mainly be named Erik, I think. |
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| dottyspots |
LOL Erik!
Yes, a good 'solid' name for a boy
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| dottyspots |
That must've been really annoying. I know we really wound up someone I was at school with who was called Janet (Rocky Horror Show anyone?)
Her father was (probably still is) a taxidermist - which rather appealed to me at the time
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| Gervase |
My name has been a mixed blessing. I was saddled with it after my pretentious mother reacted literally to my grandfather's request that she choose "a good old English name" for me, rather than some ridiculous foreign name. It just confirmed her pretentiousness to him, but saddled me with a lifetime of correcting people's spellings of it (People often tend to spell it with an unnecessary 'i' - particularly since the 'comedian' Ricky Gervais appeared on the scene) and having to explain to the ignorant that, no, I'm not a girl.
I've got used to the name, however, and can't imagine using any of the other names with which I was christened. The downside is that it makes it more difficult to hide - Google records just one other bearer of my name, and he died at the age of four. |
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| dottyspots |
I like the name Gervase, I don't think it's pretentious, rather it's an old name (although it doesn't sound particularly English to me, I'd of guessed it was possibly of Norman origin?) I like a lot of the older names, my choice for no.5 (should there be a no.5 and she's female) is a very old name, unusual, but I like to go back for unusual names
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| Erikht |
Is it possible to ask what name? |
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| dottyspots |
Estrild.
One of the names we considered for a boy was an Anglo Saxon name, I can't remember the spelling off the top of my head it was an a and e together (I do know what this is called, but it's hot and I don't really *do* heat, I'm currently planning a trip to the summer farm further up the mountain from my mum's to sit in the river there - that's always cold, it's really really appealing atm). Anyway it was Aeolvar (or something similar, with the a and e together, we went for Edward Amund in the end). |
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| Frewen |
It was my choice of middle name should my second be a boy. I had a lovely uncle Eric
Oooh - I like Estrild too 
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| Gervase |
Spot on, actually. Although I did tire of the look of puzzlement when people asked about my name and I said, "It's Norman". Only one has actually called me Norman, however, and he had taken drink.
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| Green Rosie |
Had we had a girl we both liked Molly (and it was my grandmother's name) - but with the surname of Hill, OH realised after a while that she would end up being called Mole Hill . As it was we had 2 boys and took the risk of called the younger one Ben, thinking that as he grew up none of this friends would ever have heard of Benny Hill. Woops - we then moved to France and their favourite comic is ....... yep, you guessed it ......Benny Hill.
Way back in my family history I found a Fanny Willey - she died in infancy, no doubt of acute embarassment. (And will some-one please pm me why Jenny Taylor is worth a giggle. I know I'm being thick but I've been gardening all morning .... and my arm hurts ..... and my brain has gone on strike )
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| dottyspots |
I think I've probably spent far too much time looking through baby names
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| dottyspots |
My grandmother's nickname is Fanny (her given name is Winnifred). She's still very much alive though, being 80 (I believe) in a couple of months. Sadly we're going to my grandfather's (her husband) funeral on Thursday
Amusingly he was a 'Bill' (I guess being married to a Fanny, Bill was the less 'blue' shortening of William although he was Arthur William).
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| Maxwell Smart |
I like the name Gervase but then I always did like things out of the ordinary. Although I guess names depend very much on where you live and if you live in London where there is such plethora of differing cultures it is quite common to have to ask how to spell a name. I think that people very often grow up to reflect their names and that generally the people who are the most interesting have interesting names.... |
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| Erikht |
How do you pronounce it? Gervase, that is, not Norman. |
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| Green Rosie |
Ahhhh - I see 
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| mihto |
Now what good does a pm do to a totally innocent Norwegian who is just sitting here and have no idea of why people are giggeling/blushing/laughing? I have watched the tread avidly, trying to pry the dirty secrets out of the English language, but to no avail. Jenny Taylor is still only a name.... 
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| Gervase |
Well, the septics have it as jurVASE, which is close. My parents put equal stress on both syllables, but I prefer the second to be stressed. |
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| Erikht |
So the final "e" is not silent? |
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| hedgewitch |
I can hear M-J calling right now....
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| Maxwell Smart |
kjønnsorganer |
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| mihto |
Sometimes some people know too much Norwegian for their own good.
Thank you
Btw, how did you get hold of Ø ? |
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| dottyspots |
ROFL! I was too shy to ask - thanks for that
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| mihto |
.. ..and how do you understand Norwegian??
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| Erikht |
So if I went into a pub and said "My Jenny Taylor is itching," they would all get a good laugh?
Sorry, Mum. |
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| dottyspots |
My mother is Norwegian (lives on a farm in Ulvik, a couple of hours from Bergen, most of the rest of my family are in Hamar and Lillehammer, with some in Oslo and the remainder in Tromso). My Norwegian is pretty shoddy though, my father wouldn't let us learn as children - long story - and there isn't much of an opportunity to practice here, but hey, if there's a word I'm going to know...
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| mihto |
Wonderful. Ulvik in Hardanger: one of the beauty spots in the world and at this point in time filling Norwegian stomacs with cherries. I can see that I need to watch my mouth around some of you people
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