Names

[Angree]

No I am not talking about not being able to spell definitely or something like that, I am talking about baby names.

Before you start, no people shouldn?t be able to call a baby what they like- IANBU- thats the end of it!!

I was helping my sister with her classes this week and I was shocked by some of the children?s actual names and how they were spelt ? Rebeker, Alfey and Olli, (Incidentally, even if they were spelt correctly Alfie & Ollie are not proper names, but that?s a rant for another AIBU). So those kids now have to go through their lives with those names because their parents couldn?t spell.

Yes I am being judgey!

Ah crap,well i guess that teaches me, those are not spelling mistakes, it seems that MN does not like apostrophes and converts them to Question marks.

Are you being deliberatly ironic in mispelling your MN name as Angree then?

Apparently the name Vanessa was made up by Jonathan Swift (Guardian Weekend magazine quiz - my guilty pleasure!!). So I guess new names have always entered into the lexicon.

However, I can't really recall when 'individual' spellings became really popular - the 1980s, maybe? Anyway, it's not the end of the world, is it? Kids in Reception have their names over their photos next to their cloakroom pegs, so everybody gets to know who's who and how their names are spelled.

It may be that some parents choose to individualise the spelling or the brevity of their child's name because they believe it will add something, some magic, some class, some unique element, just some individuality in a world that they feel requires it. I don't really feel it's my place to judge. I appreciate that OP was tongue in cheek (I think!) and happy to admit being 'judgey', but truly, is it any of our business what someone else's child is called, especially in our pluralistic society?

By the way, the traditional spelling of Rebecca is transliterated from the orginal Hebrew alphabet anyway. It is efforts at greater authenticity that have led to some recent alternative spellings of traditional names from Hebrew, Irish, Scottish, and many many other origins.

If you originally typed your post in word then c&pd it over here then the apostrophes will convert to question marks. Nothing to do with MN.

I disagree with you about Alfie and Ollie not being proper names but do think that misspelling?* of some names is a bit Of course some names have more than one way of being spelt.

*Misspelling has a ? after it because some parents deliberately spell their child's name a different way rather than actually spelling it wrongly iyswim.

I think deliberately mis-spelt names are chavvy and certainly not a sign of "individuality" no matter what the parents think.

The child goes through a lifetime of having to explain how their name should be written, and you do wonder if the parents did it deliberately or were just illiterate.

Of course Alfie is a proper name, same as Jack. Just because it originated as a diminutive of another name doesn't mean it isn't a proper name.

Yes, but you could say the same (explaining spelling) about a tonne of standard 'posh' names also, and there are a large number of variant spellings of, say, Mohommed.

Even 'ordinary' names such as Ann could be Anne, Jon could be John. Loads of people have to spell their name out every time they say it.

If a child is actually embarrassed by the name they have been given, or the way it's spelled, then I guess that's family business. Also, children can re-name themselves at school. My daughter has invented her own abbreviation of her (normal!) name and the teachers do use it, whether I like it or not.

A lot of the unusual spellings are surely linked to the trend in unusual celebrity names. I have just had a vision of Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches, Pixie, Tiger Lily Heavenly Hirani (can't spell), Prince Michaels I, II and III ad nauseam, Princess Tiiamii whassisname, Apple, Moon Unit, Dirndle and Crapbag.