@Jason – I don’t know if two moms would both come up with that bizarre a name. And Lady-bug??? Wow!

I think Le-a is kind of cool, but I wouldn’t get upset that people didn’t know how to pronounce it. Or really consider using it. I wanted to name our children Kedjuan, Qidtu, and Caedthri, but my wife wouldn’t let me. (Besides, we have four, and I’m not sure I could have come up with another such spelling–maybe Noemor would have worked.)

@Erick – Somehow Lehyphena doesn’t flow as well as Ledasha.

@Tim – I don’t know the answer to that one. My first thought was “dry heaves?”

@Ellen – It’s nice to find someone who shares my irritation for weird spellings. When we named our kids, we tried to give them the most common spelling possible. Megan, Nora, and Mark could easily have been Meaghan, Norah, and Marc instead, but we didn’t want to saddle our kids with a lifelong source of irritation.

Then, a high school friend, Keith Case, whose cousin’s name was Justin.

Bah-dum-bum.

I went to school with and also worked with girls named Candy Cane

I lived next door to Kris Kringle

I worked with Evergreen Forest and he sister’s name was Birch Forest

A good friend of mine was born on Christmas Eve with red hair and the last name of Bell. Her father was dead set on naming her Jingle! (As it turns out, she also has green eyes!). Her mother quickly signed and turned in the birth certificate when he wasn’t around and named her Judith. She’s been eternally thankful to her mother for that.

I’ve heard of many other strange names people have given to their children, but these people I’ve actually known. I just don’t understand why parents do this to their kids. It may sound cute or sweet when they’re little, but they have to carry this with them through life. At least for the girls, they can dump the last name when they get married, but for guys, they’re stuck with it for life unless they shell out the money to have it legally changed.

Some people have last names that I just don’t understand why they don’t change them, but that’s a whole different subject. I mean, why would a girl want to marry a guy with the last name of Pigg or Hooker? But I know women who did. When the couple with the name of Pigg had their first baby, the hospital had a practice of putting “baby” in from of the last name on the bed. In the window of the nursery, there sat their precious newborn with “baby Pigg” posted on the baby’s bed!

Ok, so I did a little ranting too . . .

One of my respiratory therapist friends treated a new mother who pronounced her new born daughter’s name “Fee-mall-lee” since it was already on the birth certificate. It was spelled “Female.”

Her name was pronounced “Ab-sidy.” Yes, really true.

@A. H. I like so many of them that it would be hard to pick a favorite.

@Christine – Seriously?! Maybe the moms skipped classes in the same school….

@Carrie – Join the club … I didn’t get it either. – it all!

@Andri-Ellen – Your name would be much harder to decipher and say if it were Andridashellen. I liked your Christmas present story.

.-= Carrie’s most recent blog post … Amazing =-.