To think my friend is an utter loon?

[Piggyleroux]

Prob should be in baby names, but need urgent help.

my best friend whom I've known since I was 12, is currently pg with her second child due next month. She already has an eight yo dd and this second child is a long time coming.

The issue is, her taste in names is truly shocking. Her dd is called Phatone, pronounced fertony, making her dd the brunt of some very cruel jokes at school. Her dd has already told me that as soon as she is 16 she plans on changing it.

Anyway, my friend calls me tonight to tell me that her and her dh have two names they like (they are having a boy)

Gryphon or Tedber.

Please, please dear mumsnetters, for the love of god, please make her see sense. (I told her I would post this on , she fully consents to canvass opinions )

Gryphon and Tedber are ridiculous 'names', but have more palatable shortenings. I usually think parents should feel able to name their children as they see fit BUT these cross the fine line between unusual and stupid IMO.

Phatone is not a name. Phaeton kind of is. Makes your friend look cruel at worst and illiterate at best.

Horrible.

Ferda - May - a birth date

I hope that woman never tries to explain such a lame joke, as it could be a reasonable name otherwise. Shame it is spoiled by the utter ignorance of its conception!

There were a lot of "great" Soviet names, for the patriotic, like "Tractorina" or "Stalina", but those, again, said more about the parents than about the child.

Piggyleroux's friend, think carefully about how such names make you look. So far, you look like someone who thinks she is very imaginative, but is actually not imaginative or sensitive enough to realise the effect it will have on a sensitive child.

"Celebrities" with silly names (Fifi-Trixiebelle, Moon Unit, Dweezil, etc.) seem to flourish because people are sucking up to them for being rich and famous. An ordinary child has no such protection, and children's cruel instincts will come into play.

Just found this post when doing a Google search - so nice to find a group of fellow Mummies taking the p*ss out of my child's name! I'm the Mum shown in the Sunday Times article linked to above (about my husband who is a full-time carer to me and my little boy).

Thought I'd set the record straight on the name. It's not a made up name and it's also not a made-up stupid spelling. It's certainly not "random scrabble letters arranged to make something".

It's actually an old Yorkshire family name, last used by my son's great, great-Uncle in the 1800's. It goes back a long way in my family and I heard it from an early age because my great-Granny used to talk about her little brother, Tedber. I've also found people with the name currently living in Spain.

We often call him Teddy as a nickname at the moment but when he is older he can call himself Ted, Eddie, whatever he likes if he doesn't want to use his full name.

If children are going to taunt my son for having an unusual name, then they are probably the kind of children who will be bullies anyway. I expect they will also be picking on the children in the class with Chinese or Asian names that they have never heard of before and which are unfamiliar to them.

still a shit name, though!

Tedber when I came across the post my first thought was "wow is this also how people react when they hear names from other cultures?" Made me feel quite sad. I love unusual and distinctive names and FWIW think phatone and tedber are cool.

Gryphon or Tedber aren't too bad in my book, but then I wanted to call my baby, if it were a boy, Cobain or Murmur, so go figure.

Phatone is plain awful imo. My daughter has an unusual name by 'modern' standards but it's an acient name and pops up everywhere, I would never have called my child something like Phatone because it's quite obviously horrendous.

I read phatone as "fat one", and the pronounciation can be misinterpreted as "fart-o-nay". Poor kid!

Don't like either of those names. Perhaps if your friend's DH is similarly keen on them he can adopt one and give the baby his old name?

I think her previous and prospective names are akin to "cruel and unusual punishment" personally. Have your own ego trip just don't inflict it on your poor kid!

Can you sue parents for abusive name-giving?

I knew a Wayne King and a Vanessa Agina, poor kids.

Tedbear is fine, wouldn't be my choice buy at least it doesn't sound pretenciously stupid like phatone or gryphon. Phatone must be the
Most awful name I have ever heard - that poor poor girl!

I have an unusual name that comes from my family's original
Country which I used to hate, I don't mind it now but people in this country really struggle to pronounce it although it is straightforward!

TedbersMum, I understand that you feel defensive about this, but you are getting a same of the sort of responses that your children will encounter with these names. I know it is right to tell us that we have been cruel about these names, and that we mothers will feel a bit sorry now. However, tell off the average 5- or 8-y-o for laughing, and the jeering could get worse. I stand by what I said about "celebrity names" seeming to attract little teasing only because people are sucking up to them (protection an ordinary child doens't have).

And I noticed you didn't defend "Phatone".

Tedber sounds like a goofy character in a Jim Carrey movie. Why would any parent.......

Tedber's OK, but Phatone? Fat One??!

You've got a brass neck to come on here and complain about the grief you're getting over something you chose. Now imagine what your poor daughter, who had no choice in the matter, lives with every day.

Is Tedber the txtspk form of Teddy Bear? Cute.

I read Phatone as Pantone initially.

Phatone just awful, try hard nonsense poor kid.
Gryphon and Tedber - Considering the " names" being inflicted on children today they aren't so bad.

I'm personally considering Sockpuppet for my next one.

Unless I've completely misunderstood I don't think Tedber's mum is the same as Phatone's mum, I don't think she is the OP's friend, just happens to have a lad called Tedber. If I've misunderstood this I'm sorry!

Anyway, I don't honestly think either Tedber or Gryphon are anything like as bad as Phatone. Not least 'cos they can easily be shortened to Ted and Griff and my own son does not use his given name (which is a rather formal, family name) but a derivation of it which is what we put on the register at the start of the school year. So if the boy is really struggling with his name there are ways round it pre-16.

Phatone - I'm sorry but there is no excuse for that. Mad.

So obviously a joke, odd

Phatone I suppose was meant to be pseudo-Greek, the way your friend pronounces it, but it still looks like "fat one". Ridiculous name.

Gryphon - a bit wild as names go, but Griff = a respectable nn for it.
Tedber - yes I saw the interjection from the mum of the Tedber in the newspaper - she has a decent excuse for using it (but her DS is still going to suffer for it looking like txtspk for teddybear) but your friend doesn't.

I think in all fairness, she needs to name her DS at a similar level as poor little Phatone, otherwise she's going to be really pissed off, if her bro gets a nice normal name like Thomas.

I once knew a family who had 3 children, all wild names - some Greek, some Hebrew (they all had more than one) - their father moved around the world a lot and took his influences from the different countries he was in. They all survived (but would probably have preferred simpler names!)

The DD called Phatone may well be allowed to change her name before she's 16 - maybe not legally until then, but with some administration (letters to school, doctors etc.) it may well be possible by agreement if people are content to call her by another, preferred name. She shouldn't have to suffer if it causes problems!

I think the little girl should tell her teachers she wants to be known by a different name.

I think her mother should be shot.

And as for Tedber's mother - yes, it may be an old name but it's not a name now! Don't forget when you choose a name that nobody else has got, there's usually a bloody good reason for that.

This has got to be a wind up. Please

Tedber's mum - perhaps this has been a shock to you, but this is how people view odd names. While I actually think it's a nice name, you have to be aware that if you go away from the 'norm' you should expect a range of reactions. You haven't chosen a neutral name, you obviously wanted the positive reactions that come from an interesting name, you need to 'own' the negative ones too.

When you pick a child's name, you aren't just picking a name that reflects you, or the 'you' you wished you would be; you are picking the label he/she will wear for the rest of their life.

It is not you that has to deal with the fall out of the negative responses to your choice, it's not your CV that could be sniggered over, it's not you that has to introduce yourself with an odd name and deal with the surprised look, it's not you that will spend their life on the phone to call centres explaining they have spelled your name wrong again (I speak as a woman with a rather 'vanilla' name but with an unusual spelling, my mum get's sniffy as my spelling is an 'older' version of the normal name, but that doesn't change the fact that I regularly have to explain to people at work that I didn't get that e-mail because they added extra letters into my name, again).

And as for the original 'fat tony' girl, does she have a sane middle name she could use? There was a girl in my class who arrived at secondary school being known as her middle name.

Just because something was once a legitimate name is not in itself a strong reason for using it these days if it is inevitably going to lead to teasing for the child.

I would have thought the starting point for naming a child is to ask "is the child going to be happy with this name?", rather than "well it is a real name so I can use it if I want to".

It is a shame if someone uses a name and doesn't realise that most people are going to think it is odd, but that is why naming a child is so important.