Dear Abby on Unusual Names

From a Moos Perspective:


The unusual spelling of a child's name is what makes the child unique.

Not their sense of humor, intelligence, mannerisms or even their looks? Only their stupid MONIKER??

I fear for my species, more every day.

Unusual spellings don't come across to me as creative or unique. They come across as pretentious. Granted, I'm glad my parents didn't give me a cookie-cutter name, but they did choose one that's an "established" name.

My husband's first name is unusual, uncommon, and old-fashioned, but not "creatively" spelled or outright made-up. He's gone through his life repeating and spelling his first name for just about every person who has to write it down correctly. His parents didn't do him any favors, and he doesn't see correcting people as a chance to "assert his uniqueness" or any other such claptrap.

The "unusual" names often have an adverse affect on job seekers. A "Shaveeka" or "De'Marcus" will often have a resume overlooked despite qualifications and education due to assumptions that the person is ghetto. In the call center world when I assisted with "escalations" aka people who wanted to speak to a supervisor, I would hear the nasty, "What is Laqueesh's last name," regarding the agent I was handling the "sup call" for at the time. I would answer how last names were not allowed to be given out due to security purposes. One man made a snide comment that was common from racist callers, "I am sure it is Jackson or Washington," as if only African-Americans have those as surnames??? An "Anna" or "Jason" tend to get more respect from the callers as if name should be an issue...but, sadly, it is which is why people should really think before tagging a baby with an odd ID.

"FUCK WORK"

as mrs reverend lovejoy loves to quote.. why wont someone think of the children..

if you give a kid a really kr8tiv name, then other kids will bully that kid.. especially if that name gives an impression of them being too big for their boots..kids will use that to make that kids life a living hell..

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

The creative name thing is a pet peeve of mine. I am a CPA and it is a pain during tax season when you are trying to enter peoples tax information. We finally had to add a special question on our information forms asking clients to tell us the sex of thier dependents because we could not tell by looking at the childs name if it were a boy or a girl. It drove us crazy. We got tired of having to call the client and ask them, "Is your child Jayyden a boy or a girl?" UGHHH! So now we have a column that looks like this boy/girl...circle one....What is the world coming to?

If you have ever worked for medical records at a hospital, you will have seen or heard it all.

More than one medical records clerk has remarked on the entries for birth certificates to the effect that the parents should be smacked for giving their brats such horrendous names.

In my line of work I get involved in a significant amount of hiring. I can tell you first hand that a lot of resumes get passed over because of goofy names. I wonder if these moos realize the damage they are causing. I also refuse to try and pronounce any unique names. I just call them "buddy", "chief" or some other generic term. I'm sure they don't like it but I really dont care.

I, too, was stuck with an unusual name and it's caused me no end of trouble - I was Viktoria trying to get through a world of Heathers and Jennifers during the 80's and getting regularly beaten up and bullied for it. The saddest part of it is that my poor parents were'nt even trying to be pretentious, they were just simply German immigrants who were too honest about who they were to anglicize their identity - or mine. Basically, it was no different than hispanic immigrants naming their daughter Maria or Arab imigrants naming their daughter Fatima.

My maiden surname was even worse - just five letters long but I was forever correcting people about pronounciation. Not to mention having to protest whenever they wanted to call me "Vicky".

These days, things are a bit better for me, since Victoria is now a more popular name (every so often, I hear someone call out my name and I whirl around to find that they are talking to a little girl), not to mention having an angloid married surname makes life easier.

I'm not at all bitter over this, though. Yes, I may well have been bullied or passed over for jobs because of my name in the past, but I have since developed a certain pride in it and I am grateful to my parents for having held onto their cultural heritage in the face of enormous pressure to conform (not to mention ugly stereotypes of Germans that persist to this day).

Nonetheless, other than religious or cultural reasons, I would still discourage a parent from giving an unusual name. If you can possibly avoid it, please do so.

I also went through school in the 80s and early 90s being named Victoria. I wasn't bullied for it, but people did want to call me Vicki. I also got a lot of robot jokes because that show about the little girl robot named Vici was popular at the time. I'd much rather be Victoria than Jennifer or Heather, yech. I'm so glad that Tori wasn't popular when I was in school. That name annoys the hell out of me. BTW, yours is cool spelled with a K.

I too grew up with an unusual name for the time (also the 80's) - I have the same name as Julia Roberts' character in Steel Magnolias. No one had my name until that stupid film came out - in fact, I also got picked on for it in a world full of Heathers and Jennifers (and Katies and Stephanies). I was named by my dad after a famous historian (a guy) so explaining the origin of my unusual name for the time made me feel like a dork and a half. Now tons of people have a kid with my name, because of that stupid film!

The 80's was loaded with stupid names for Caucasion kids. "Caitlyn" was the worst, All I heard in Mauls were, "Caitlyn...Caitlyn...Caitlyn..." I actually heard an "Ashlynn-Cathlynn". God...what a horrible way to tag a kid!

"FUCK WORK"