To not use proper spellings when naming your child

[Catterpillarsflipflops]

Am I being unreasonable to think it's ridiculous to use a funky spelling of a normal name. I spent today dealing with lost paperwork for a child as the person that took the details didn't think to check the spelling as there is no other spelling of the name.

It looks silly and just causes no end of problems for the child. It also disadvantages them as straight away people get an image of what the child is like.

I've seen

Jaymz
Ezmay
Lil-leigh

A friend of a friend of a friend of mine swears she went to school with a boy named Refail

I might have a look tomorrow. I've just logged off my computer for the evening and I'm on my phone now. There are so absolute crackers.

However...

If you want a childish giggle there's a great twitter account called AT actualnames1 which tweets names it's found on official documents from actual people. Many of them are toilet level (or below!) but not all. And these are a mix of quirky and traditional names.

Amongst the latest offerings I give you:

Cheese Bologna
United States, Census, 1920

Willie Butts Cargo
United States, Census, 1940

Anita Lowdick
United States, Census, 1940

Ainel Furray
Canada, Census, 1911

Feeling Priddy
United States, Census, 1910

Fatty Singers
United States, Census, 1940

Max Wackoff
Father
New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Baals
Harry William Baals was an American politician who was the Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, from 1934 to 1947, and from 1951 until his death in 1954.

Assing Reinhold
New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1925

Fairy Bee White
United States, Census, 1940

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Monds
Wonderful Terrific Monds Jr. (born May 3, 1952) is an American former professional football defensive back who played one season with the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). His unusual name was originally given to his father when, after his grandparents had several girls, a son was finally born and his father thought it was "wonderful, just terrific."

MN should not complain...

Its funny, I've looked at so many names of DNA matches now, it's not hard to guess if the person is British or American/Canadian just from their names. Sometimes from first names and sometimes from last names, but you can just tell before you click through and see their location. There's definite patterns!

Mormon names are particularly hideous if you don't like funny spellings and made up names though. It's a definite Mormon 'thing'.

Here's some more examples:
Kayzin
AnnDe
Tymberlee
Tivian
JaKoby
Rexalyn
Lenyx
Jazlin
Riglee
Roczen
Torrick
Jossilyn
Payzlei
Ashtyn
Madilynn
Kaidence
Cohyn
Dallie-Ann
Beckette
Kylar
Cayson
Kynlee
Jaelyn
Zaylee
Kaydri
Brailee

(I can feel the MN judging from here!)

I find the whole thing fascinating about how cultural this is and how it reflects your community. All those comments about how little Balonz wouldn't become a high court judge? Just go to Salt Lake City and they'd fit right in and no one would blink. They would however think Catherine was exceptionally dull.

Personally I think there's a balance - there's plenty of different and unusual names to avoid being one of thousands and having to use the initial of your surname without going crazy unusual. The happy place is something people can spell but is different. Ironically you should call your baby something really out of fashion like Ian or Terence or Simon which bucks the trend. For their generation it's a really out there name (and will probably be the type of thing they'll call their own children as there's a rough 100 year cycle in the UK for naming trends).

But the winner of Shit Names definitely goes to the English civil war era puritans (both in the UK and US) who just took it to a whole other level...
https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/09/puritan-names-lists-of-bizarre-religious-nomenclature-used-by-puritans.html

The MN baby names section has nothing to compare with Job-raked-out-of-the-ashes or Fly-fornication

Or how about Die-Well, brother of Farewell (surname was Sykes)?

I am officially a nerd.

On the topic of family history, my great something grandmother was called Fanny Clapp.

Gloria Hunniford is from Northern Ireland, therefore British.. Since she is the daughter of a member of the Orange Order, she would probably not take kindly to being called Irish.

No, Caron isn't an Irish spelling of Karen.

The naa-a is a racist urban myth is what it is.

There was a little girl in the village where my friend lives called Sharlit....

You are right, but that stupid name for a boy is one of my pet hates. In fact, I think I might loathe it above any other name. Beau might well be the French for handsome, but we are not French; our word for belle is beautiful, so to English eyes it looks as if he's called Pretty or Gorgeous or something. Not to mention that it sounds exactly like bow. It looks and sounds exceedingly feminine. And I say that as someone reasonably fluent in French. Why on earth anyone would saddle a British adult man with a name like Beau is beyond me. Can you imagine a rugby player or a mechanic or a lawyer named Beau? Makes me think of a pale-faced dandy dressed in a purple velvet frogcoat, like Willy Wonka.

If they were twin boys, they could be called Beau and Violin! 😂

Adoring your patience and grace @tulippa 😍

Oh who cares, I wasn't going to waste time looking it up. Stupid politics.

What, no cedilla?

I don't get a chance to share this often, but God bless Mumsnetters.

"[Arthur] Schopenhauer’s father carefully chose his son’s first name on account of its identical spelling in German, French and English." Who knew?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

In some cases, it might be a clue to something darker:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/18/uk-couple-who-named-baby-after-hitler-jailed-for-terror-group-membership

Oh ffs not this again. Why do MNers care so much about other people’s names? You spell it wrong, they correct the spelling, everyone moves on. It’s not that difficult.

I work somewhere where there is a sign to contact Kacper if you need a certain thing doing. I spent months thinking that's an unusual name until I realised it was a funky spelling of Casper. Parents obviously didn't know the letter c only makes 's' when followed by i, e or y.

Bad example given Kacper is how you spell it (correctly) in Polish.

Because DH is English and we wanted his side of the family to be able to pronounce their names easily we went for Welsh names that have similar English equivalents, followed by overtly Welsh middle names for all four DCs. And, yes, they have been mistaken for you-neek, or pretentious spellings. I
One DD may have the same name with a "y" in it as your DD. I had to convince PIL that it was an actual name, not me being awkward.

He missed out the Italians - Arturo.

Then you’d be a twat, obviously. It’s a name, not a common noun. You can’t tell someone else how to spell their own name just because you prefer the “traditional” spelling.

Sometimes I just come onto Mumsnet to post 'Nice Beaver'.

We established an English nickname for DD early on because English family members thought we'd called her "ceiling" 🙄😂

Give the man a break! Although can the hive mind find a name that works in four or more European languages?

Sometimes I come on here just to re-post the longest quote I can find when I could just tag the poster. I always just add the one short sentence, for maximum fucking annoyance! 🤬😂

Anna

It's tribal though.

It's like an ism - you belong to my tribe so I will treat you differently to someone I can tell immediately as being from a 'foreign' tribe.

It's also a way of promoting your identity and passing it to your kids. Kaylee and DeShall are almost trapped within their community in terms of belonging simply with their name.

Had a nurse prewarn me as the mum had just had a go at her for not knowing 'ka-ia' is kardashia as "you pronounce the dash (hyphen)"

Because they're funny twice over - once because of the tragedeigh of their spellings and once because of the parents with zero awareness who so badly want to be youneek! 😂