A "Madison" by any other name ...

[sparkofcreation]

To cleodhna and thebirdwoman: Okay, you asked for it ...

Okay, so I have had it up to here with people giving their kids stupid names. In the past six months, one of my co-workers' daughters named her son "Atticus"; a second co-worker named her son "Rocky" (not only that, but his middle name is Adrian, FFS) and then yesterday I got word in my email that a co-worker

Comments

bad names

[palliddreamer]

I should seriously post a list of horrible names I've seen from being in the nursery.
Abcde (AB suh dee)
Usnavy (oos NAV ee)
IceTea Babyjesus (I kid you not, mom's two favorite people).
Apostrophes are also in, as are various forms of Asia. Din'asia, Minasia, Bethany'asia. That kind of terrible thing.

These kids will never get a job. And I'm not allowed to refuse to put a name on birth certificate.

Interestingly NPR did a segment on bad names. In the Netherlands your name has to be approved by the government. A bit extreme since they rejected names like Russel, but still, at least there's a process.

Re: bad names

[sparkofcreation]

I thought Virginia had relatively strict baby-naming laws, though, or at least used to. I remember a case when we were in college where a married couple who had different surnames wanted to give their son(s) the father's name and their daughter(s) the mother's name ... they had a son and then later had twin girls and Virginia refused to allow it because by law the children of married parents have to have the father's surname.

Your kids (I mean, your patients, not your own kids) will get plenty of jobs. Once they change their names.

I assume you've heard about this?

Re: bad names

[palliddreamer]

How does the surnames case apply to shitty first names though? I'd love to challenge some of the terrible ones like Chlamydia and Meconium that I've seen (meconium is the term for the baby's first poop).

Unfortunately I don't think many of the kids I take care of will be changing their names. Most are trapped in a bad situation and have families that just generally suck. It reinforces my belief that people should be born sterile and have to opt in to have children rather than opt out.

Re: bad names

[sparkofcreation]

I didn't mean to say that the case applies, just that it gave me the impression that Virginia (unlike, say, New Jersey) does actually have laws about what is, or is not, an acceptable name for a child. So I'm surprised that you're not allowed to reject anything.

Re: bad names

[bugtilaheh]

Someone's name in one of my schools was Russel Russel! Yikes!