In Which People are Named Stupid Things

Okay, who the hell names their daughter Pebbles?

Let me take a step back, take a few deep breaths, and explain my utter disgust in humankind.

First, you need to know — I’m a name nerd. I love names! I love looking at graphs, and figuring out which names are popular where and why and especially when. I like girl’s names best, but boy’s names are alright too. This all probably stems from being one of only 198 Leilas born in 1991 in the United States. It’s such a unique part of my identity.

So, because I love names so much, I was really excited to find that Social Security offers lists of every name given to at least five children in any particular year. The lists give every one of these thousands of name, and the exact amount of helpless babies who were given these sometimes horrific names.

I started just sort of scrolling around 2009 babies, the most recent data. Soon, I thought “What fun to look at my own year of birth! Good old 1991! Back when stupid names* like “Naveah” and “Messiah” weren’t in the top 100!” What a shock I received upon opening 1991. Sure, the top ten were no surprise. Jessicas, Ashleys, Sarahs, blah, blah, blah.

Then I started poking through the weird names. The names given to at least five girls, but far less than even the 198 Leilas.

Some horrors I found:

Cortni: 45 girls (Clearly some awful bastardization of the super-popular Courtney. This is only one example of the awful spellings people concoct. Things such as Margrett, Willaim, and Jessieca.)

Warren: 5 girls. (Girls! I understand the gender-crossing of the more typically feminine names, like Noah. I don’t see Warren. When your daughter gets her 5,000th business e-mail addressed to Mr. Warren X., she is not going to thank you.)

Prince: 5 girls. (If you’re gonna give your kid the fairly crappy name of “prince,” can you at least make it a male kid? This beats Warren.)

Lamichael: 10 boys. (Yeah, this one just sort of confuses me. It sounds like someone inept speaking Spanish. “This is my friend Michael. Oh, you speak Spanish and no English? Uh…um…este…es…mi amigo la Michael.”)

Christ: 11 boys. (Come on, how’s he going to live up to that? Can you wait at least until the kid is potty trained before putting unreasonable pressure to excel on him?)

Dong: 18 boys. (I’m really, really hoping the parents picking this name are just confused non-English speakers. Otherwise, that’s flat out malicious. Nonetheless, those 18 little Dongs are turning 20 this year, and they’ve grown up around English speakers, and they must be PISSED.)

Pebbles: 50 girls. (OH GOD WHY.)

 

 

* Please don’t feel offended if you totally love spelling heaven backwards. Names are a very personal choice, and whether a name is stupid or not is fairly subjective.