An interesting side effect of my research for the book is that I’ve developed Bad Baby Name Sympathy. I find that I start defending the name-givers.

Take this blog post, for instance, about Cate Blanchett’s new child and baby name. No offense to the author, but I find it hard to believe that anyone these days is surprised or shocked by celebrity baby names. I mean, really? And this one isn’t that bad: Ignatius.

Apparently, our sense of justice and fairplay about names is deeply ingrained and not easily uprooted.

And I’m not just saying this because I secretly wanted to name my kid Ignatius. Promise.

Posted: April 14th, 2008 under Name Media.
Comments: 4

Yesterday, April Fool’s Day, was a day of unrealized dreams: dreams of all the great, funny names I could claim are true. But in reality, in this case, the truth is funnier than the pranks. Really. And if you don’t believe me, buy my book (more shameless self promotion, check out the links on the sidebar) or just browse through the comments on Assignment 1.

I did, however, see a number of fun, Bad Baby Name-related items. I’ll highlight two here:

The featured article on the main page of Wikipedia yesterday was about the infamous Ima Hogg. Is there any better example of a Bad Baby Name in the real world? Here are some interesting things gleaned from the article:

• Ima was named after something specific, in this case a character in a poem her uncle wrote. Apparently her father was unaware of what he was doing until after the christening. As I’ve said, well-meaning ignorance.
• Ima was made fun of in school.
• She disliked her own name. She purposely wrote her own signature illegibly and often avoided situations where she’d have to explain her name.
• There was no “Ura” or “Hoosa”. At least not in this family (I did find a Ura Hogg in Arkansas in 1880, though it may have been Ura Hagg—not much better).
• Despite her name, she was quite successful.
• She defended her father’s honor to the end.

It’s an interesting read into the psychology of bad baby naming. Check it out.

As to the other item, I need to explain a little. If you’ve read my book (can you say shameless self-promotion?), you know that I’m a geek. Stand proud, I say. You may have gleaned that from my Dungeon Dragon Gygax comment before. Well, on the Dungeons & Dragons homepage, they always go all out for April Fool’s and they had this “press release“.

Did anyone else see any good April Fool’s jokes that deserve mention here?

Posted: April 2nd, 2008 under Name Media.
Comments: 3

It’s amazing how having a kid takes you out of the loop for a while. Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting and reading. Now it’s onward and upward.

Last week I ran across this article in Mental Floss magazine that’s apropos.

When I was researching The Book I actually came across this name (the longest name in recorded history, supposedly), Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberger-
dorffvoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewaren-
wohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurch-
ihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvoran-
dieerscheinenwanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauch-
lichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischen-
sternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohn-
barplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonver-
standigmenschlichkeitkonntefortplanzenundsicherfreuenan-
lebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvon-
andererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior.  In fact, I ran across it several times, though I could never verify where it came from. So this is nice, though I still haven’t found any actual proof of it. Then again, proof just kind of ruins good legends, doesn’t it?

Posted: March 24th, 2008 under Name Fun, Name Media.
Comments: 10

Okay, here’s a short one at the end of a long week (for me…it’s amazing how the theory of two kids pales so dramatically to the reality of two kids).

We’ve all heard the scuttlebutt about Matthew McConaughey wanting to name his kid Budweiser (and that his brother did name his kid Miller Lyte…nice). That’s its own topic and certainly lends some support to Michael’s theory about bad baby names being the fault of the men. Anyway, I did a check on Ancestry.com and was disappointed by both Budweiser and Miller Lyte. I did, however, find a Bud Weiser:

This guy must have been in a circus or something. He shows up in Ohio in 1910 as a lodger and lists “Singer” as his profession. Everyone around him are singers, acrobats, comedians, and the like. It’s an interesting list. (One of them is named “Fread Great.” In the context, I wonder if it was supposed to be “Fread the Great.” We’ll never know).

There was also a girl named Miller Light in the 1910 census, at least according to the index, but the image is distorted and so I’m not going to open myself up to the experts on that one.

Oh, and incidentally, my co-author Michael Sherrod is going to appear on The Today Show on Monday to talk about the book, so check it out.

Posted: March 14th, 2008 under Name Highlight, Name Media.
Comments: 2