Here in Taiwan, I have a student called Lucifer. We have a reborn nutjob on the staff, who is trying to get the school to change the student's name. I think it is not the place of a school, or state, or legal body to insist on a name for a child.
Okay, that guy just needs a slap- some folks really do develop a brass neck once they think a deity is standing at their shoulder like some kind of metaphysical bodyguard.
Yeah, was going to mention "Freakonomics" as well.
I know some people (not well) who named their kids Dawan, and Dawadawan - (Pronounced to sound like "The One" and "The Other One." I also know a Luke and Leia combo, as well as a kid whose name growing up was Peanut-Butter before he changed his last name.
Less obvious was one kid from my high school named "Justin Case."
Ask God to smite the s^^rfs down if you can.
Just get it over with and name your kid Robert'); Drop table Students; -- (Link for the xkcd impaired)...
Wrong type of geeks I guess :(
My parents actually came very close to naming me Walter. Walter Mallon. *rimshot* True story.
That would have been a mandate to become a seedy individual. I dig Dave.
Director of Sales
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Another rule of thumb for naming kids: giving weird names is often ok, as long as you also give them a mundane name and they can choose which one they want to use. So Susan Galadriel Smith can be Susan in professional world and Galadriel in Paizo forums.
...or David Cosmo Eisele could choose to be known as "David".
Another rule of thumb for naming kids: giving weird names is often ok, as long as you also give them a mundane name and they can choose which one they want to use. So Susan Galadriel Smith can be Susan in professional world and Galadriel in Paizo forums....or David Cosmo Eisele could choose to be known as "David".
Or Rone no middle name Barton could have been... well, Rone. Nevermind.
My wife’s maiden name is Graham. Her parents were on the fence for naming her “Candy.”
A friend of mine who I miss dearly (he died of asbestosis a few years ago) was named Rich Uranis. His brother’s name is Thor. I forget nephew’s name, but it was equally amusing.
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I have an unusual name, and I lived in apartheid South Africa. I was teased and abused about it, but I am very happy with my name. There are very few Taliesins out there. I don't care what others said about it. I am blessed with a cool name.
I think God is an interesting name. I think it will help the kid to avoid getting suckered in by religion later, quite frankly.
Here in Taiwan, I have a student called Lucifer. We have a reborn nutjob on the staff, who is trying to get the school to change the student's name. I think it is not the place of a school, or state, or legal body to insist on a name for a child.
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IDK about the "GOD" name. I grew up named Heath, and it's a pain in the ass to have a weird name. I often wished it was Bob or something.
I had a friend named "Guido" who got his named legally changed to something else cos he was sick of hearing about it.I agree; the Bible thumper should quit meddling, but what's the story with the Lucifer name? That's jacked up too. Who the hell names their kid Lucifer? Who needs that bullcrap? I don't get it. What's wrong with Jimmy? Or Musashi or something.
My dad almost named me "Heathcliff," but a friend of his said, "aww, man; don't saddle that kid with that all his life." To that dude, thanks dude.
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Naming a child shouldn’t be an exercise in self indulgence or power-tripping. As a parent you have the power and responsibility in bestowing a name on your child, and our society puts a lot of store and power in names. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with giving you child a unique or unusual name, but you should be aware that they may not (or may) thank you for it at various stages of their life.
Ideally I think the state or church should not need to become involved in what someone can or can’t name their child. Ideally, state or church should not need to intervene in order to prevent parents abusing their child either, but unfortunately it is necessary (that’s the sort of f&%#ed up world we live in); and calling your child “S@#* head” or “Number 9 Bus Shelter” is child abuse quite frankly.
I do think that if the courts need to get involved as to what people can or can’t name their children, they should do so with a light touch, and defiantly allow for unusual names, and family or cultural traditions, and even a desire for parents to give their child a unique name. They need to draw a line at stupidity though
I try to have enough faith in the human race to believe that no parent gives their child a name out of malice for the child … but given some of the truly stupid names that some people end up with I have to come to the conclusion that if it’s not malice it’s due to those parents being f#+&wits who have no business in having children.
If you want to indulge yourself by giving something a stupid name for whatever f%!!ed up reason, get a goldfish. Get a pet rock. Call it Stony McFlinty the Third. Get it out of your system.
And no, I do not count names like Heath, or Rone or Taliesin or Lazaro or Malcolm in the above tirade. Those are all great (and in some cases quite unusual) names. Sure, they might (or might not) cause a few childhood tense moments; the fact is that kids can be cruel, and will find a way to make fun of just about any name if they want to; an unusual name might just give them a slightly easier target. I’m sure that even someone named “Looser” can rise above the challenge of their name if they have the strength for it; but that persons parents have really caused them to start life at a major disadvantage as best.
Naming your kid God, to me, comes very damn close (if not over) the line where people should be rethinking their ability to raise children if they think giving them that name is a good idea.
Lucifer is an interesting case, and I guess shows that things aren’t so clean cut; it is a beautiful name. It sounds pleasant, and its meaning (Light Bringer or Morning Star) is pleasant too. However, by association it is not a nice name, and I think it is a case where the negative association makes this almost unpalatable as a name. I am not religious, and really couldn’t care less that someone named Lucifer is effectively named after Satan; I do care that a good deal of the world’s population are going to make that association, and this is very likely to put the kid at a sever social disadvantage. I don’t know why the kid’s parents named him such; if it was to thumb their nose at accepted propriety or conventions, I think they should be b~#@%slapped for treating their child as a social experiment rather than a human being. However, in this case I agree that it is not the right of the school to change the child’s name if wherever and whenever they were named it was legal to give them this name.
And Thor isn't that uncommon amongst Scandinavians; I got a Thor*** surname in my pedigree.
Thor is an awesome name, just not in certain combinations...
And no, I do not count names like Heath, or Rone or Taliesin or Lazaro or Malcolm in the above tirade. Those are all great (and in some cases quite unusual) names.
I do agree, and I too have a name which is not exactly common (Magdalena is not my real name), and in retrospect it is pretty cool even if sometimes it might have been nicer to have something more common. Then again, I have ran across situations when there are four girls in same class named Anna, and that is not fun either.
Jesus is indeed common name in Spanish (and Michael and Gabriel universally), and Thor (and variations) in Scandinavia, and you can meet people named Hercules or Athena too. Then again, oddly enough Zeus or Odin and some other names like that are almost nonexistent. It's a society thing, and as such it might be a good idea to run the name ideas with your friends (they are also good at spotting obscene pronounciations, spoonerisms and such matters).
Lucifer is phonetically a nice name, I do agree. So is Chlamydia (Terry Pratchett books, for the record, have lots of jokes about character names and naming children, characters include Pippin Galadriel, Chlamydia, Bestiality Jones, Note Spelling, Magrat, Perdita X Dream and teenage vampires who pretend they are accountants and dentists named Lloyd and Susan).
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Also, I notice there's a lot of people named "Jesus" in hispanic cultures;
There's a lot of kids named Jesus in english cultures as well, we just adapt the Hebrew variant of Joshua instead of the Greek variant of Jesus. I named my first born Joshua.
But its worth noting that the name Jesus, though connected with Christianity, is a legitimate name of ancient origins (c.f. Exodus & Joshua). Naming your kid God on the other hand is just wrong as its going to greatly offend a lot of people for no good reason and make the kids life a living hell. I would advise his relatives to call him by his initials on those occassions they interact with him.
About Lucifer. His Chinese name is "You Ming", which means "have bright", and translates idiomatically as "famous" He chose his English name for classes in his second language. His parents cannot speak a word of English, and had no part in the name. He researched it himself, on the internet, and knows the meaning. I fully support him in his name choice, and think it is the best name in his class. Better even than Strawberry, or Playboy ;)
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Or Rone no middle name Barton could have been... well, Rone. Nevermind.Another rule of thumb for naming kids: giving weird names is often ok, as long as you also give them a mundane name and they can choose which one they want to use. So Susan Galadriel Smith can be Susan in professional world and Galadriel in Paizo forums....or David Cosmo Eisele could choose to be known as "David".
See now, my parents were rather nice about that. My middle name is "Barr". My step-father decided NOT to officially adopt me because he would feel horrible contributing to my already unusual first name a middle and last name that would cause unnecessary pain and grief in my childhood years.
His last name? Bell.
Yeah, my wife is from Michigan's UP, and she's half Finn & Swede. She has a cousin named Thor ...
Rock. My parents are from Caspian and Stambaugh, which technically no longer exist.
He researched it himself, on the internet, and knows the meaning. I fully support him in his name choice, and think it is the best name in his class. Better even than Strawberry, or Playboy ;)
Woah, woah there. Who is going to choose Lucifer when you could be
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Director of Narrative
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I don't plan to breed, so I don't have a dog in this kid-naming fight (not that it's a fight, I just had to use that euphemism), but I do have a question related to naming things. Why have I seen more than one "Morningstar Christian Church"? I mean, really? Did they read the book sitting in the pews?
Or is it *that* kinda church, 'cause that'd be pretty damned clever.
My goodness. I feel for the poor kid.
I thought I had it bad when my boyfriend told me he wants to name his
first kid Optimus Prime.
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And Thor isn't that uncommon amongst Scandinavians; I got a Thor*** surname in my pedigree.My dad has the name "Tordiff" as one of his middle names, which possibly has a viking antecedence.
(lol) Jorvik=>York etc...
"caster" at the end means there was possibly a Roman fort or "castrum" thereabouts at one time.I had a book "The Story of English" went over the placename distillations of the U.K. among other things.
The battle on the docks, where Beldan was sneaking around under the dock looking for a good stab at the 'caster, reminded me of the Stamford Bridge battle where Harald Farhar's champion held back the brunt of the English advance across the bridge until somebody went underneath and thrust a spear up into him....(if I have my history 100% right)
Then the poor bastards had to march back down to the south and fight William of Normandy. I marched 15 miles one day in a full ruck with an M-16 at the ready; I can't contemplate their undertaking.
Ja, my great grandfather's a Thorson from Norway. Up in Minnesota, there's quite the mix of Germans, Norwegians and whatnot; intriguing surnames abound; one guy in my Basic Training was just called "private alphabet" due to his surname's complexity.
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Yeah, my wife is from Michigan's UP, and she's half Finn & Swede. She has a cousin named Thor ...Rock. My parents are from Caspian and Stambaugh, which technically no longer exist.
He researched it himself, on the internet, and knows the meaning. I fully support him in his name choice, and think it is the best name in his class. Better even than Strawberry, or Playboy ;)Woah, woah there. Who is going to choose Lucifer when you could be
"and nothing to get hung about..."
I think that choosing a name for a child is a serious thing,if the kid is going to get teased,ridiculed and picked on in school and in life because is parent thought they where being funny,crerative,originan or unique,remember this each year there a shooting in a school because a kid got pucht to far or to often.think about this,I would be mortified to learn that my kid shoot 15 people that commited sucide because he coudnt stant to be made fun at because we gave him a stange name.
I went to school with a fella named Daniel Daniel Daniel (that's right, first, middle, and last name). What a sin. At graduation, the entire audience just laughed. Cruel people!! Also, my real name is Dean Martin...seriously. I understand these people's pain.
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My goodness. I feel for the poor kid.
I thought I had it bad when my boyfriend told me he wants to name his
first kid Optimus Prime.
You um ...did get a new boyfriend right?
EDIT: I have no right to say anything though....I gave both my boys unique names... Bleys and Dashiell (before they came out with the Incredibles I might add.) Of course then I gave them normal middle names so if they hated it they could go by their middle names. So far so good.
In my experience, having an extremely rare name has consistently been a good thing. (Although a joke name, or deliberately provocative name would be a different story)
Sure there were a few extra jabs during grammar school, but that only taught me how pathetically simple some people were, making comments about how I was different because my name wasn't typical, or later on, making similar comments because I grew my hair long. Despite being bigger than most other kids in my grade, I was never a bully. I actually saw My Bodyguard and took it to heart, often putting myself in harm's way to keep other kids from getting picked on.
As I matured it seemed people liked my name more and more. And hey, when someone shouts it out in a crowd, or someone mentions it in conversation, there's really no confusion. I quite like not sharing a name with other people I know. It's just easier.
These are the Daves I know, I know... these are the Daves I know...
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...but I do have a question related to naming things. Why have I seen more than one "Morningstar Christian Church"? I mean, really? Did they read the book sitting in the pews?
Or is it *that* kinda church, 'cause that'd be pretty damned clever.
Revelation 22:16 - Jesus calls himself the bright and morning star (a star of guidance and direction, outshining other luminaries.)
Curiously, biblically speaking, the devil is never called Lucifer or Morning Star. Isaiah 14:12 is a prophecy directed at the king of Babylon, a man (as is made plain in verses 4 and 16). Somewhere in the middle ages (or thereabouts) it became popular to interpret all of the old testament allegorically and it was decided that the king of Babylon was an allegory for the fall of the devil.
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Director of Narrative
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...but I do have a question related to naming things. Why have I seen more than one "Morningstar Christian Church"? I mean, really? Did they read the book sitting in the pews?
Or is it *that* kinda church, 'cause that'd be pretty damned clever.
Revelation 22:16 - Jesus calls himself the bright and morning star (a star of guidance and direction, outshining other luminaries.)
Curiously, biblically speaking, the devil is never called Lucifer or Morning Star. Isaiah 14:12 is a prophecy directed at the king of Babylon, a man (as is made plain in verses 4 and 16). Somewhere in the middle ages (or thereabouts) it became popular to interpret all of the old testament allegorically and it was decided that the king of Babylon was an allegory for the fall of the devil.
Cool, Thanks!
http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
Go here for a good laught at some bad name.
Bad names I have seen:
Sharon Klitz
Elizabeth Scrotch
Flavia F*cker
Gernade Wilson
Richard Pheanis
Monsterrat Killer
David Raper
And then there's the poor kid whose name was:
Anakin S. Wilson
One guess what the 'S.' stood for.
http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
Go here for a good laught at some bad name.
That being the case, I am or was, on the sensitive side of life.
However, there isn't a Rone candybar either.
"Hey, Heath; where did your mom hide to have you?"
But it's groovier in college though; all the ladies who love to eat English toffee...
I was trying not to say it, but yes indeed. An uncommon name lends one an aura of extra humpability.
And sorry as I am that you were compared to candy; something delicious people pay to savor, I was born near San Francisco, at some point lived in San Francisco, and my name is Rone. Yep. Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. I thought I was the first person to coin the term, "Do you think you were the first to come up with that?" Which is quite ironic.
When other seven year olds said, "Rone the Drone," I responded with, "Cool... I'm the one that gets to sit back all day and do nothing but knock up the queen." Guess I was a little precocious.
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My wife’s maiden name is Graham. Her parents were on the fence for naming her “Candy.”
A friend of mine who I miss dearly (he died of asbestosis a few years ago) was named Rich Uranis. His brother’s name is Thor. I forget nephew’s name, but it was equally amusing.
Thor. That reminds me...
Two weeks ago, I met a staff member at the Philmont Scout Ranch whose honest-to-god given name was Torgar Torgarsson. Needless to say, he was from Minnesota.
My husband had a friend with the last name Slaughter. Named his first kid Maximillion.
Still not as bad as God. That's just mean.
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About Lucifer. His Chinese name is "You Ming", which means "have bright", and translates idiomatically as "famous" He chose his English name for classes in his second language. His parents cannot speak a word of English, and had no part in the name. He researched it himself, on the internet, and knows the meaning. I fully support him in his name choice, and think it is the best name in his class. Better even than Strawberry, or Playboy ;)
Sorta like naming your kid "Cellar Door".
My husband had a friend with the last name Slaughter. Named his first kid Maximillion.
Still not as bad as God. That's just mean.
Maximilian Slaughter is such an incredible supervillain name.
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one guy in my Basic Training was just called "private alphabet" due to his surname's complexity.
Ever been to Erie, Pennsylvania? There's a reason they call it Little Poland. The whole place is alphabet soup. For example, when I was growing up, my best friend had a last name of "Prszybyszewski" (pronounced "Shiv-a-shisky"). 14 letters, two of them vowels.
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So I have to jump on this name thing. First off my name is Keani (Kay-on-ee) and it took til the 7th grade before I could say it and people still can't figure out how to say it half the time. So when it came to breeding I wanted original names for my kids but not over the top. We have Arwen, yes Dreamweaver named her from the books and the we have Berlyn, I named her cause I thought it was great. People still can't seem to get their names right. However I am glad that they have the great names that they do.
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I went to school with a fella named Daniel Daniel Daniel (that's right, first, middle, and last name). What a sin. At graduation, the entire audience just laughed. Cruel people!! Also, my real name is Dean Martin...seriously. I understand these people's pain.
My friend Kaleb's* father is named Bruce Bruce Bruce. I remember Kaleb telling some people about it when we were in grade school. He got s#&% over that one.
*You might remember him from my "stupid tourist rant" on the rant thread. He works as a re-enactor at Fort Ticonderoga.
Like the bird...?