Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Names, names, names

While in the costume shop today we had a lengthy conversation about baby names. None of us are pregnant but our shop manager just had a baby (her name is Pearl) and several of the other girls have recently attended baby showers. The main core of our conversation was the following question:

Is it worse to have a made up name or an old fashioned name?

If my boss's daughter's name is any indication, our answer was in favor of old fashioned names. Our collective thought was that it's easier in the long run with an old fashioned name. My friend Jared likes to use the example of "Grandma Tiffany" because it just sounds kind of off.

Anyway, this led me to mention a cutest baby contest held by the Standard Examiner back in 2009. The thing that stuck out to me was the amount of crazy names. Crazy names made weird by their spelling:
Deyn
Mattison
Keatyn
Nevaeh (yeah, it's 'heaven' spelled backwards)
Krew/Kru/Crew (anyway you spell it, it's still not a great name choice)

Others were mixture names, as if the parents couldn't decide:
Tylynn
Treytan
Braylon
Andriana
Ayzlee (okay, I don't know WHAT Ayz could be a diminutive of...)

And another group was...just confusing.
Taegan
Donoran Ray
Zaidyn
Jae (Her picture looks like she realized she was not only given a boy name but one with weird spelling)
Akayla
Atreyu (just to prove it, because I wouldn't believe it)
Kaebrie
Jorey Joy
Keola
Kynleigh
Lyric
Roston
Navy
T'Maea
Haggen

My lovely sister, Hil, blogged about stuff like this a while ago on her blog.

Well, with all that said, I hope that when the time comes that we have kids that we don't fall prey to any of these rules. Although, if we DO decide to go nuts and name our kids names that are bizarre hybrids of our own names I can rest easy because my friend Caroline has already thought of some for us: Jansay, Limes and Saymes. It's pretty awful.


And what do YOU think about all of this?



3 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't know if it is fair to say that these are Utah names but someone has dedicated a website to it. http://wesclark.com/ubn/

LIZ said...

Well, I guess you know how I feel about it since my kids names are not typical. Areya, Aniela and Taevin.

One of the main motives to name my kids some thing a little different was so at school, doctors offices or other places when your name is called you don't have to ask "which one" there are 3 of us.

There are so many fun and different names that help make you special.

I do admit that there are some pretty outrageous names out there though.

Laceski said...

I have to admit, with The Neverending Story being one of my favorite movies as a kid, Atreyu is kind of awesome. Sure he'll get beaten up regularly, but it's worth it, I say. :)

I would definitely err on the side of old fashioned. Coming from someone with a stripper name (let's face it, Lacy fits right in with Trixie, Bambi, and Destiny), I would always go with something dignified than trendy. Seriously, when was the last time you came across a Judge Lacy.

It may be cute when you're a kid, but no adult wants to go through life with the name Trinket or Treasure. Again, unless she's a stripper. ;)