“Weird” names

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty, Personal stories,

My ten-year-old and I were chatting on the couch last night while my husband watched basketball (I think? Was there basketball on last night? It was some sports game). Someone on TV said “Zachary” and my son said, “Zachary? THAT’s a weird name.”* Given that he’d said the same about Daniel not too long ago, I suspect he’s either a victim of (on the one end) the names that are very popular/trendy right now (the Aidan-Jayden-Braden Generation, by which I mean nothing negative about those names — just that they’re all the rage right now), or (on the other end) a household in which his mother really really likes to talk about names that don’t tend to fit into the current secular trends. So does he think a not-weird name is Jayden? Or one of my very favorites, which he and I have discussed before: Joachim? I didn’t think to ask him, but I intend to this evening, and will be sure to report back. 🙂

At the same time, I was telling my parents recently that names like Alice, Agnes, and Harriet are starting to come back, and they were both flabbergasted. I’ve also considered that in fifty-plus years, there will be grandmothers named Brittany and Ashby and Wyatt (thanks Kutchers) and grandfathers named Caden and Logan and Saint (thanks Wentzes), which always blows my mind a little. Also how much weirder Grandmas Brittany, Ashby, and Wyatt sound to me than Grandpas Caden, Logan, and Saint. Why is it men age so much better????

How about your kids or other little ones you spend time with? Have you ever seen them wrinkle their noses at particular names? Do you have a sense of which names they think are “weird” and which are “normal”? How about those of you who have/know little girls — what have they named their babies? (I hear a lot of Luke Skywalker around here, and the stuffed animals have names like Bandaids, D2, and Biscuit. So I don’t have any great insights.)

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* In other generation-gap news, during that same TV sports thing that was on, a commercial had “I want to be like Mike” as its soundtrack. “Who’s Mike?” said my eight-year-old.

11 thoughts on ““Weird” names”

  1. So I am totally caught up in the generation of “Grandma Brittany”! I never even considered that. I love the honor in giving children the name that God will call out on judgement day. … I never considered them being grandparents. I am suddenly more proud of all my kids names, thus far, because they are worthy grandparent names 😉

    My girls always name their babies after their aunts, or other girls/ladies who have made an impression.

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  2. We have had so many funny comments about names too! The most recent is that my 5 year old told me that his favorite girl name was “-Mona”, he can’t say “Ramona” and those are the books we are currently reading. It’s just funny to picture a baby Ramona, but it will probably be back in a few years. :). Also our oldest is a Wyatt – he was born before our conversion so his name is stylistically a little different from our others. But we do know a man in his 70s named Wyatt!

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  4. My 8-year-old nephew said this about my (at the time) 10-month-old son, “Surely, Auntie Sarah will name Nathaniel something else when he gets older. Nathaniel is obviously a baby’s name and not a grownup name.” (I guess knowing a baby with a name but no one else with the name = babyish name, ha). Making it even funnier, my nephew’s name is the same style as my son’s name.. everyone on my side of the family (myself included) accidentally calls my son by my nephew’s name from time to time.

    I have caught my nieces naming dolls variations on the name Rose (great!) and also suuuuper frilly, almost unusable names (I think a lot of girls do that at some point). Actually, the name I most often used to name my dolls is still at the top of my list for girls, but I guess all my peers felt the same way, because it’s very common now.

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    • Your nephew’s so cute! Oh gosh Sarah, now I’m dying to know what your fave doll/baby name is! Funny, even though I’ve always been into names, I only remember naming one doll — I called her Lovey, which I now call all my boys, not on purpose! I mean, I don’t call them that because of my doll … pretty funny though!

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      • Claire or Clara! I loved that name, and I remember my sisters thought I was crazy for liking such a “weird” name, haha! Now I know so many baby Claire/Claras. My twin liked to name dolls “Crysta.” I also liked “Amanda.” But yeah, I had my fair share of “Sweetie Pie,” “Cutie” and just about any animal had a “creative” name based on the species (my favorite stuffed animal being a purple dolphin named “Dolphie” :)). “Lovey” – super cute!

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  5. I am a teacher. I see a whole spectrum of names normal to trendy to weird. Makes naming my own tough sometimes (can’t use that name – associated with a difficult student). I think the ‘weirdest’ I have seen is a girl named Galexy. Fits her perfectly though.

    When considering boy names for a son I did have a random thought about how kids will have the same name as adults. I had to face the fact that my son could marry a Bayleigh (in my opinion, only a little girl’s name).

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