Community Chat

[Zaimee]

@CJC  We named our son Andrew, but he was definetly an Andy. ...Until after college his girlfriend, now wife, called him Andrew because former girlfriend called him Andy.
Now, my friends and family call him Andy, her friends and family call him Andrew. 
Was very confusing for little granddaughters!

As a teacher, I have had many unusual and alternate spellings of names. During the 70's  had twins Shadow and Skylark, a Sunbow, Immonia, Genesis.  More recently, Z'Aliyah and Xeros!

[songbird]

My husband is David to me.  Never Dave.  Everyone calls him Dave.  Except me. Impossible to call him anything else.  My brother is David too.  Non of that Dave stuff for him either. Even my name you can't make as nick name.  It's just Rachel.  Rach sounds stupid and Shelly is not Rachel to me. So all me friends, I'm still Rachel.  Once in a while my parents called me (in Italian) Ray-Kell-ly.  When I was in Mexico I immediately became Raquel. the funny part is my Russian co-worker always called me Rachel (as in English)  Russia has a ch (chul sound)  So Rachel there is the same as Rachel in English. My son is always Jonathan.  Not Jon.

[barrel racer]

I go by a nickname.  Mom wanted it to be my legal name, but that wasn't done then.

[Enufstuff]

@Zaimee   During my 32 years of working in public schools, I also saw many unusual names and alternative spellings.

  One name that stands out was a girl named Shnell. A coworker asked the girl if her name had been a family name. She replied,

"No, my mother likes the perfume".  What ?

  That was just one in the beginning of a long list of unusual names, many of which were spelled phonetically incorrect. Some were just words or parts of words, broken up by an apostrophe inserted. Fancy!

  I felt bad for some of the students stuck with these names. 

[katie1859]

2 new grandbabies
Ava and Haley

Just so happy they're not named mountain or Juno lolol.

[mormel20]

Parents should always think about ways that names can be made fun of.  My cousin named her son something that can rhyme with something not nice. Not at all nice.  So when he started school the other children called him by the word that rhymed. Anyway, he started going by his middle name because of this. He is in his 20's now and still going by the middle name. 

[Burnsite]

Some names in my nieces families are delightful:  Josie, Will, and Jack (short for Jackson)

[KBEANS]

There was a teenage girl in the school I worked at.

I had the student list and was checking her off. She said her name was Destiny So and So.

Hard as I tried; I could not find that first name with that last name.

Finally, I said you're not on my list Destiny So and So. 
She said, "try Gladys So and So." I asked if that was her name? She said, "no, my name is Destiny."

I said," then why would you have me look for Gladys?" She answered, "because that's what they call me." I said who? She said, "my parents call me Gladys."

I asked, did  they name you Gladys at birth? Yes, she said.

So I said, "well then you're Gladys on my list, so why would you tell me Destiny."  She answered nastily, as if I had something to do with this debacle, "I hate that f'en name and I want to be called Destiny!"

I told her matter of factly,  "I want to be called Demi Moore, but I don't see no one doing that!"

She laughed so hard, and we became friendly for the rest of her HS years. Needless to say, I was the only one who called her Destiny for the next 4 years. 😊 

If my name were Gladys, I'd want to be called something else too. 😝 You know....like anything but SUE! 

[lgfan]

I hear that the more traditional names are coming back. Some people are now calling their children Irving, Arthur, Walter, Agnes, Josephine and Esther.

[occasionalrain]

I remember when it seemed everyone was called Lisa or Mark.