Amusing but sadly true, some people should not be allowed to name their own children. I will spare readers the urban legend of the teacher whose students, brothers Oranjello and Lamonjello, baffled her with their exotic-sounding names until learning they were named after the gelatin desert.
I am talking real-life horrible names. Only yesterday I had the opportunity to peruse approximately 166,442 registered birth names for a one-year period (I am omitting the year and state - why bring on more embarrassment for these poor people
???) and came across some horrendous, if not unique, names.
In addition to the thrill of adding to my list of the strange and unusual, I was fortunate enough to experience a little slice of Americana as I sat in the lobby of the state's vital statistics bureau. I am not sure who was more entertaining; the young lady who kept talking about getting a copy of her "birthtificate", or the three pregnant ladies who came in with two infants in carriers, three toddlers in strollers, and four preschoolers. And left with two infants in carriers, three toddlers in strollers, and three preschoolers.
But I digress. Among the usual fourteen variations of Lakeisha and DeQuan, there were more than a few that jumped out at me. I really don't care if someone wants to spell 'Dwayne' as 'Dawayne' or 'Bernadette' as 'Byrnydet'. What really gets me are the totally made up names, or when kids are named after a gemstone or a planet. Or worse, after a bodily function.
Of the fifty or sixty plus that were my favorites, I have narrowed down the list to these few. These are real - I saw the birth registry myself - and these are not paired with foreign last names. On the mother's or fathers side. These all had every-day Anglo last names. Jones, Baker, Johnston, Williams. Who would do this to a kid? And WHY???
Don-Tez (Gotta admit, it has flair!)
Antquenette (I'm wondering if the 'q' is silent?)
Billitis (Because that's what you get when you see the hospital charges?)
Jhettoya (A cross between a Volkswagon and Toyota?)
Ogle (File that under WTF)
Leylandrea (Sometimes, there are no words.)
Sunshine (There is always at least one of these- and she usually has a sister named Moonbeam.)
Crissenthia (I think they were going for Chrysanthemum and gave up.)
DeeAnder (Boy? Girl? Who knows?)
Quran (Like naming a kid 'Bible'?)
Tyger (He's GRRREEEAAAT!)
Shasta (Thinking cola.....)
Lateria (Too close to Latrine.)
Latrina (It was only a matter of time.)
Chazzaray (Serious?)
Ciji (Wasn't there a Stephen King movie about this?)
Lruthilyn (I don't even know where to begin.)
Qualeyna (Hyena?)
Chimera (If you don't know what this is, google it. You'll see why little Chimera grew up to be a serial killer. And not a nice one.)
Taureen (I think soup comes in this)
Marnequca (Huh?)
Lucolia (Is it just me, or does anyone else see a little Swiss guy on top of a mountain yodeling about cough drops?)
Shataun (I knew someone who named their dog this because all it did was Shataun the floor.)
Uniqua (Yes...but still. Really?)
Aleel (I vaguely remember him from my college genetics class)
Aneese (Or a nephew?)
Diarra (mom read this on a Pepto bottle and thought it sounded purty.)
Quezada (Isn't this a game show? Or a sandwich shop?)
Sukhdeep (I'll bet high school was fun)
Sparkle (Who does this to a kid?)
Candle (I know, I couldn't believe it either.)
Tammerin (Aren't these now a protected species?)
And my personal favorite:
Dougnetta (After a late night at the Dunkin'?)
