As a former divorce lawyer, I heard some horror names parents had given their kids.

Tia-Marie-Kylie. Boutros-Boutros. Porsche Carrera. With this last one, when I was writing the names down, I thought the mother said "Portia". "Oh, from 'The Merchant of Venice'" [Blank look from her] Me: "You know, the play by Shakespeare". "Naaah, the car."

A woman with boys named Wayne, Duane, Shane, Kane, Zane and Lane. And a daughter, Jane.

A client with three boys - Mike Tyson, Lenox Lewis and Evander Holyfield.

My favourite - a young couple who wanted to sue the local Registrar of Births because she wouldn't register their baby daughter's name and asked them to think really carefully about the name they'd chosen for her - Labia. I sent the boyfriend out of the room and explained to the woman (who, do not forget, had just had a baby) what labia are. She was somewhat surprised. After consulting with the boyfriend, a change of name was decided upon - Venetia.

from the link:

"Every time I see the name "Nevaeh" on baby name lists I get that much closer to naming the kid "Natasliah".

Heh.

Somebody on my baby board has a kid in their kid's class named Axsole. WTF?

My uncle Duane's twin brother was named Wayne. They shared a dental practice.

Dois and Lois were my aunt and her sister. I don't think they were twins, even.

Worst ever -- my dad, the psychiatrist, had a patient whose horrid parents named him Sandy. Their last name was Claus.

I think it can be fun to talk about funny names. But I also cringe a little when the conversation comes up, because there's a part of the Venn diagram of "funny/strange to me" that can be just othering, xenophobic. Not that this is where folks are coming from, but in my experience it can be an uncomfortably short hop from the "funny name" discussion to the urban legends about inappropriate or weird names. I'm not suggesting that this is happening here, now, but always feel like it's hovering not too far off in the distance when we step into the world of critiquing others' naming. Many people might not realize that the naming-critique discussion often operates as a racist/biased trope. I'm probably extra sensitive to this because of where I grew up - a place where a lot of multiethnic names mingled and people had strong reactions to other people's naming patterns/ideas/spellings.

People just have different naming traditions and goals. My mom thought she was giving me a super original first name, not realizing that 10% of her entire generation was going to name their daughters after the same pop song. An appropriate name in some groups is outrageous in others. Most people naming their children are rarely doing anything other than giving their babies names that hold meaning and significance for them. What some see as ignorance, others see as creativity or freedom from oppressive history. Non-Anglo-Saxon names, non-Biblical names, non-historical names are OK. My grandparents gave their 3 kids names all starting with the same letter; my grandfather wanted to do that because his dad used E's to name him and his siblings. Thankfully, this died with my generation. And naming goes through fashions and fads, as anyone who's played with the Social Security index can see. The names we just gave our cats sound 'exotic' to people but were highly popular in 1910. I just don't like the idea of using other people's naming decisions to indicate inferiority, when most cultures' naming traditions are arbitrary in the first place. It's a bunch of syllables by which to designate someone.

We might see those names differently than what the parents intended - but the world goes 'round, and in the end people will live their whole lives with those names and it probably will be OK. I think part of respecting people's differences is respecting that the names they give are important to them, though they might not make sense to me.

TPS, they might have been going for a variant of Axel.

Years ago, when I worked in a nursery school, we had a girl named Gately. Unusual, but I kinda liked it. The one I don't understand is one I've seen a couple of times: Rehetah, which I see as "Hate Her" spelled backward. What gives?

Rehtaeh is Heather spelled backwards.