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.

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?

In general, my theory is that most people who name their kids crazy things fall into one of three categories: they are legitimately just being silly, they are well-meaning but ignorant of the name they’re bestowing, or they have some personal and special meaning behind the given name. I’ll talk about the first two later, but “Tm” left an interesting comment on Assignment 1 that talks to the last point.  The following is from a personal history that Tm sent me that expands on  the story some as a father explains to his son the origin of his interesting name:

“Ever since I set eyes on [your mother] she was the only one for me. So when she turned [my proposal of marriage] down I was a very much upset….So I told her that I was going away but if she should ever change her mind, just send me one message, ‘Return Richard’, and I would return as fast as my horse could bring me. At least in this case, the old provervb ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’, proved true, for it wasn’t many months until the message came to me, ‘Return Richard’. It was such a precious message that when your were born I insisted that Return Richard was to be your name.”

Now I think that’s romantic, and a story like that makes a name like Return not so hard to take, at least from my perspective.  A name bestowed for a special reason doesn’t have quite the same bite.  I suspect stories like this lie behind many of the crazy names in history, but what do I know?

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?

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.

 What did we name him?

Dungeon Dragon Gygax of course.

…

Just kidding. Actually, his name’s Eli. Man, wouldn’t it rock to have a kid named Dungeon Dragon? According to my co-author, Michael Sherrod, men often want to name their kids funny things, which is why I say that and my awesome wife rolls her eyes. (Michael’s example is giving your kid the middle name “danger.” No really, check out the article about us in the New York Times, if you haven’t already. I just saw it today because, well, my wife was having a baby.)

Incidentally, there is no one in the U.S. federal census named Dungeon and only a smattering of Dragons. Too bad, I guess.

Good Things Utah, ABC



Morning News, CBS



So here’s a family (the Walkers) from Alabama as they show up in the 1860 U.S. federal census. Note the names of their sons: Bud, Little Bud, Buddy, Little Buddy, and Least Buddy. I thought it was bad that my wife and all her sisters have the same middle name. I can’t imagine family dinner at the Walker house: “Bud, stop hitting your brother! No, not you Little Bud, you’re not doing anything wrong! No wait, did I say Bud? I meant Buddy! Buddy, stop hitting Little Buddy. Least Buddy, stop crying!”

I guess it speeds things up when they’re all being bad.

Thanks to Ginger from Prattville, Alabama for this one. She posted this comment in the RootsWeb Review, a weekly newsletter from RootsWeb.com. They always have fun name stuff, so if you want you can subscribe and check it out.

If you read the comments, you’ll see an attempt to undermine my honor, claiming that we got the “Ima Pigg” wrong and it should be “Ima Hogg”. Don’t believe it. Regardless of the famous Texan, “Ima Hogg,” there is in fact an Ima Pigg as well. She was born somewhere around 1890 and lived in Oklahoma at the time of the 1930 census. Look for yourself.

Of course, this is a married name. I don’t know, ladies. Is this a deal breaker: “Will you marry me? If you do, you’ll forever be known as ‘Ima Pigg’.”

IT’S HERE!

You can now buy the book that was the inspiration of this blog. Finally. You’ll notice the new links on the sidebar (of course, if this is your first time here, it’s all new to you) which take you to three reputable bookstores whereat you can buy my book. It’s only $9.95, so go buy it. Really. Isn’t a good laugh worth $9.95?