What's in a name?

[Breton1900]

Maybe I'm getting old but why do some parents give their children such unusual,and often unkind, names?

Class registers are becoming a minefield as one finds pupils with names that are increasingly bizarre, unpronounceable or just downright funny.

Below are just some of the ones I can recollect:

Armani
Remy Martin (not sure if this was in honour of the cognac, the rapper, or the French rugby player but "remy" has its own connotation in the playground)!
Jack Daniels
Fox
Blondel (who clearly wasn't)
Pagen
Kiaora (pron: KIA O RA)
Amanda-Lyn
Ptolemy (no the child wasn't Greek)
Priam (nor was this child Trojan)
Taboora,(presumably what Mum was consuming when she got pregnant)
Summer (reminiscent of The Wicker Man)
and twins called Anna and Lynne, which of course are not unusual names of themselves, but do cause some unintentional mirth when given to children who's family name is Seed!

What is the connotation of "remy" in the playground? [clearly too innocent emoticon]

Summer doesn't seem particularly unusual to me.

DD has a Ptolemy in her nursery class, so perhaps (with yours and Grovemum's) it's having its own small trend?

Where I live the term "remy" is playground slang for "remedial" i.e. a child who isn't very bright.

BTW I understood Priam to be a Greek name not Indian! Hence King Priam father of Hector, and who, in mythology, is related to Brutus of Britain, Aeneas, and Romulus and Remus, amongst others!

Vallhala - Mini Cooper is just downright sadistic! One chap I knew was called Michael Hunt and, yes, he was known as Mike!

Breton, same here when I was at school. I'm always amazed when I hear of it being used as a name now.

My son is called Remy, what's odd about that (middle name is not Martin though!)? It's a legitimate name from a name book, we didn't make it up! I'm not sure what 'playground meaning' you refer to but if I recall my school days correctly than ANY name can be turned into something cruel. I agree that some names can go too far (Apple etc) especially when totally made up. The worst offender I've ever seen (from a spelling view point) is Kaydn/Jaydn. Makes me mad!

I have a very unusual name myself and swore never to do that to my kids but then I married a man with one of the most common names ever and realised how lucky I was not to have to share my name with friends or be labelled Name1, Name2 etc. The name Remy turns up all over though - Remy the Rat in the film, Remy the butler in a Dan Brown book and most recently Jude Law's new film has a character called Remy. And the biggie - Remy Le Beau - infamous X-man!

I just got back from holiday where a lady told me she had a friend called Abcde (ab-see-dee) and another called Secret Lee.

Remy is a French name