My motives for writing this blog are purely selfish. I have spent the last six years of my life substituting for absent school secretaries and office managers in elementary schools. My first task each morning is to write tardy slips for latecomers. I ask each child to tell me their name, and I write the name on the tardy slip. They may say “Julie.” So I write “Julie.” “No,” they say. “Not like that. It’s J-E-W-E-L and then a ‘line’ and then E.” I write out “Jewel-e” – and I think, what were the parents thinking here? Don’t they realize that no one on the face of the planet is going to spell that correctly when they hear it? Doesn’t the thought enter their heads as they’re gazing on the face of that sweet infant in the hospital that every time that kid is late for school, some poor secretary is going to have to cross off “Julie” and write “Jewel-e,” wasting her precious time – which she will need to fill out Samyul’s, Kenidee’s, Leica’s, Zachgary’s, Maecin’s, and Eian’s tardy slips? Yes, not giving your child a stupid name will be of benefit to the child as well, but that doesn’t really matter to me. I would just really like to go to work someday and have the world make sense again. I want to say, “What’s your name?” and hear, “Michael” and be able to confidently write “Michael” and not hear, “No, not like that. It’s…” Is that so much to ask?

Enjoy my blog. Laugh at the strange names. Laugh at the idiot parents who gave these names to their kids. Whatever you do, just do NOT put any of these names on a birth certificate!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Today's Catch

Today I worked at another school and had a chance to collect some more strange and unusual names. Again, I did not have time to view a comprehensive list of all the students in the school. If I had, I'm sure I would have found even more weird ones. For today's post, I've divided the names I found into categories:

Creative spelling, pronounceable, but still VERY wrong:

Allon (Alan)
Gabriellah (Gabriella)
Makaylah (McKayla - I will have more to say about this name)
Kaetlynn (Caitlin)
Ayrek (Eric - believe it or not)
Mahlee(Molly - really?)
Alleque (could this be "Alec?")

Creative misspelling, rendered unpronounceable:

Rachele - going for "Rachelle," but missing an "l," so we should pronounce it "Ra-sheel"
Chaise - I think they were trying for "Chase," but the addition of the "i" makes it the french word for "chair," which is pronounced "shez." I doubt that's what Chaise's parents were going for...
Aliccia - Probably "Alicia," but with that extra "c" we should say "A-lee-chia" - as in "Capuccino"
Kamie - I think this is supposed to be short for "Camille" - or in this case "Kamille" - and pronounced "Kam-ee" with a short "a" sound as in "cat," but with only one "m" we should pronounce this name "cay-mee."

Named after a tree:

Alder Blu
Willow

Named after a celebrity:

Keanu (there will probably be a lot of these in the coming years...)
KC Sunshine (parents were possibly smoking some '70s-era weed when they came up with this)

Just plain strange made-up names:

Ajayi
Kiss'shonna
Allazai
Ortis
Kylien
Moniquereach
Samaiyah
JaLisa
A'nonyah Aaliyah

Huh? If any of you have explanations for the above names, please let me know!

Hope you enjoyed these. Keep in mind this represents a sampling of a SMALL sample of names in ONE school. Feel sorry for the teachers. Feel REALLY sorry for the poor substitute secretary if even a few of these kids were late today...

I am always looking for more names to add to my collection, so if you see one that makes you laugh or causes you to wince, send it in!
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5 comments:

  1. N8November 8, 2010 at 7:47 PM

    As a substitute teacher in Eastern Idaho, I can empathize. When Kate and I try to come up with names for our boy due in Dec this year, as well as when we were naming Allie 18 months ago, these kinds of things run/ran through our heads. We heard/read soooooo many messed up names! We resolved to stick to a strict naming criteria:
    When read, easily pronounced
    When read, easily recognizable as an already existing name
    When heard, easily spelled
    When heard, easily recognized
    When heard, easily repeated
    When heard, no weird looks, no strange pity compliments, sympathetic tones or interrogations in an effort to unveil some form of justification for the name. Just plain, normal, real life names we've heard and known all our lives. I think it's a good rule of thumb...FOR EVERYONE!
    Although we weren't perfect. When Allie was named, we slipped a little. There are various spellings(especially with today's endless creativity) and we've since just accepted that people will spell it Alli, Alley, Ally or Ali. And she'll be taught to know that that's just the way it is. She can blame us for that one. But she'll also be told that any other proposed spelling would be absolutely absurd. We'll help her learn ways to make people feel stupid for suggesting grotesquely unreasonable forms of the name Allie.
    Rest assured that baby #2 will follow the guidelines more closely!

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  2. CarolNovember 9, 2010 at 6:30 AM

    I love your rules, Nate! Now if we could just get everyone to obey them!

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  3. UnknownNovember 9, 2010 at 10:28 AM

    My 87 year old grandfather's name is Ordis (similar to the Ortis you listed). His mother supposedly heard that name as one of his father's WWI buddies and thought it was "the most beautiful name she'd ever heard." Personally I think it's the ugliest name I ever heard (though I love you, Papa!) Anyway, the only way I'd ever use that name is if I had a pet tortoise, that's IT!! ;)
    PS: I'm 36 weeks pregnant and we haven't found out the sex. This baby's name will either be Caroline or William. Done and done!

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  4. CarolNovember 9, 2010 at 5:48 PM

    Caroline and William sound like wonderful names, Elizabeth! Good job! And "Ordis the Tortoise" is perfect - I hear a children's story in there somewhere. Thanks for posting a comment!

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  5. KenNovember 10, 2010 at 11:30 PM

    I have a student named Eryk and a Kisean (pronounced Kih-shawn).
    Another category may be odd name combinations. As a child, my cousin had a friend whose name was pronounced "tree-on-a" (I don't know how it was spelled) and her last name was hill. I knew a student at the U of U named Collin Cancer, awfully close to colon cancer, and his father was a doctor!

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