Thursday 10 March 2011

Yooneek and Kre8iv Names

Kewl & Kewt baby names ...only we all grow up and then spend the rest of our life spelling it out to people.

Would you thank your parents for your name if they spelt it so yooneekly just for the sake of it.
I think knott.
Fair enough if it is cultural or back to ancient spellings.


At my sons' preschool there are 2 Samuels and a Sameul.
At playgroup someone spells my Samuel's name - Sameul and another person - Samual.
I was confused myself the other day when I was about to write it down. I seriously got out something to check.


I was already wondering why people have to be so kre8iv when I came across an article in the Reader's Digest about the very issue.

We all know the substitution , rearranging of letters and additional letters does nothing to change the pronunciation of even simple names. It does make them seem harder to pronounce, let alone spell.


I am not one to judge but seriously I wonder why people want their children to stand out...whether they like it or not.

It is more like torture the name spellling to increase the 'torture' at school ...then everytime they fill a form.

Cimberleigh?
Keightey ?

Dayvd ? or Daivd ? an Australian school friend's mum spelt it differently in birthday cards every year.

Matthew with one tea or two ? I am often asked !


When it comes time to do the family tree you might find that 'branch' falls off when no-one can look up the name because of the unusual spelling. We had a bit of fun searching the NSW database recently but you can't much information unless the marriage is prior to 1960. A quick look at the database marriage names revealed mostly normal names too prior to 1960.

Unusual names are a different story but still have their problems.



Cillian ...now I know this is a Irish name but how do you say it ...KILL ian. A little fellow at 4 boldly told stood up to the Principal of the school and told him he said it wrong. He was receiving an award :) too. Every time he got an award he had to do it at school and the kids teased him mercilessleigh.

Mozart ...moes art apparently but seriously it does suit the guy who now wants to be a musician. The guy gets asked all the time why he was called Mozart ?

Out of interest  I also googled 'yooneek' baby names and found this excellent post too.

Ps When my Samuel was in the NIC unit the baby boy, a metre away and right next to him, born the day before, had the same first name and surname. Exactly - no middle names were used. The file had a sticker to say beware patient of same name or similar.  

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17 comments :

Mum-me said...

We learned the hard way when we gave our 3rd child an unusual name (an old Irish name) although we never thought it would cause so much confusion as it has. Our next three children have very ordinary names with very ordinary spelling.

Anonymous said...

My biggest pink when to kinder with an Arkystar. Took me all year to remember it ...

melbo said...

Oh this is one of my favourite topics.

The sign in book at our daycare is a real education in this regard.

Natalie said...

BLERGH!

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

@Mumme - it's a hard lesson to learn but her name is lovely.

@Caz - I think our preschool has a few good ones but that is stellar.

@Melbo - editted the preschool signin book out of my original post LOL - but it's an eye opener.

It took everyone ages not to call Cillian 'Sillyan' even me.

Anonymous said...

My boy's name is actually Alexander but he is always called AJ and he prefers it. I nearly cried the first day he brought home a painting he did at kinder and despite painting his name on it the teacher scrawled ALEXANDRA across the top of the page! Seriously, how hard is it? (I was so annoyed and unfortunately it was indicative of her teaching!)

Glow said...

My sister is a name enthusiast so when naming Tricky I was so worried about what she would say (she loves it, phew!).
My birth name is not yooneek at all, but I could never find any pencil cases or toothbrushes with my name on it. The name I go by now is rather different and normally a male name so there is no chance of getting a personalized keyring!

jeanie said...

Ah - I have a child with a unique name and I know why I named her so.

However, I do absolve myself with the knowledge that I gave her a unique name with a unique spelling - I didn't take a perfectly normal one and mangle it (do I get off on that tecknickalatee?)

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

@Glowless - my point is more about the tortured and mangled spelling than unique names as such.
Truly unique names are fine ;)

@Jeanie - yes, it is lovely name too ;)

Being Me said...

That is a very good point you raise about not being able to look them up in years to come unless you have the spelling right! The poor ancestors who decide to do a bit of genealogical research on the family are going to come a cropper...

We ever so slightly mangled (by one letter) our second daughter's name. But... in my defense...;P it is also a recognised and accepted version of the name. So I guess that counts me out as a baby name mangler. Just!

Becky said...

We've learnt this the hard way with Kahlei's name. So many people call her 'Carlie' and even James struggles to spell it. The reason I chose to spell it this way was simply that I loved the name but hated most of the spellings, especially ones like Kaylee - I thought this way people would be less likely to shorten her name to 'Kay' (?) but now I feel terrible that she will spend her entire life telling people how to spell or pronounce her name.

phonakins said...

ugh.

I'm sorry, but I refer to those sorts of spellings as "Bogan Spelling". Yes that might be mean of me, but there's an ounce of truth to it.

Kellie said...

My name is simple - Kellie. But I've spent my entire life being asked: ``is that with a `y' or an `i'?'' Hmmm.
So when deciding on names for our two li'l princesses, we went very traditional. They have cousins with unusual names that could be pronounced a number of ways (and spelt a gazillion more).

Emma said...

Ha ha, gr8t post.
I honestly wonder if people even care about spelling any more (you see so many shockers on facebook and elsewhere) but mispell someone's weird-arse name and you hear about it!
My in-laws recently had a baby and gave her a non-traditional yet also not exactly unique name and the husband and I both forgot it. They didn't look very impressed when we had to ask again what it was. Oops.

ClaireyHewitt said...

Love this post, I am with phonakins, sorry, but silly names annoy me, and like it or not they also have a negative impact later in life an article last year did a big survey on job applicants, they put in the exact same job applications for jobs a number of times, one with a "normal, everyday, correctly spelled name and the other with a unique name...the unique names never got an interview. I remember all the comments about parents saying they wouldn't want their kids to work in such places etc etc, but the underlying concern is, your name tells a lot about you to someone who has never met you, whether it is wrong or right.
In saying that, my parents were considered a bit odd giving me a modern weird name in the 70s.

Unknown said...

I just think of hard to must be for some kids to learn to write their own name! too tricky!

Melissa said...

This is too funny! I myself changed some letters in my daughters name just to make it different, one of a kind(Jazmyn). Yeah right! I found out shortly after that it had already been done. Jokes on me. I actually have gotten mad sometimes when people have spelled it wrong but really I'm the one to blame. LOL Great post

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