If I meet one more kid named "Travis" or "Trevor" or "Tyler" I swear I'm going to punch the parents right in the snout.

Met a lady named D' Juana Beer. She was caucasian. Nice person actually.

There is a guy who works at the local Costco whose name (on his name badge) is Oonique.
I went to school with a guy named Richard Harry.
One of my cousins married a lady whose name was Sylvia Sylvia.

Freakonomics has an interesting study on naming conventions. He looked at the bizarre names creeping in from the fringes and asked some questions. Turns out that the income of the mother has a strong correlation to the "wrong"-ness of the name. High income families tend to give relatively sane names -- Michael or James or what-not -- or Jewish names, iirc. Lower income families tend to give names like Buffy and Bambi and the like. He continued to note a trend on a particular name, showing that the higher income families spelled it correctly, while the lower the income, the worse the name was spelled.

Nutty stuff, names.

Dan

"Alexis" is the diminutive of "Alex" and happens to be the name we chose for our daughter.
"Mercedes" was the name of the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat for whom a particular model of Benz automobile was named.

On the other hand, a co-worker of my wife, having planned to name her son "Fletcher" shortened it when an aquaintance chose that name for her son.
The little guy is growing up as "Letcher". :rolleyes:

Les

+1 "Mercedes" gets the same hall pass as "Jesus" for people of spanish descent.

And strippers!!!

HA! Todd would know!

In China a lot of the hotel staffers take Anglicized names and it's kind of a hoot to see some of them. First one I ever saw when I walked into a hotel on my first trip to Guanzhou was a guy named Rowley. Ha ha. For some reason I kept pictuing him as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide.

Hey Strippers need lovin too!!

And doxycyclene.

And then there all the "customer service" people that deal with your credit card or computer problems that have changed their names to Tom, Dave, Harry or similar........

My favorite one, pronounced Sha thod spelled Sh**head.

So if your parents named you "Dipso", would that make them high or low income? ;)

Hypothetically speaking of course.

That was a very interesting chapter of a good book.

Aside from the spectacle of some really unusual names was the point that if you are in the ghetto and name your kid a mainstream name like Elizabeth or Royce, the implication to your neighbors is that you are "acting white" and by choosing a very "black" name you are showing solidarity with your community.

Ultimately the economic question is by giving your child a stereotypical ethnic (or unusual) name are you limiting their potential success? The example of "Winner Lane" and "Loser Lane" is given. Using regression analysis, there is an clear correlation between the potential lifetime economic and educational benefit to being named Alex Williams versus DeShawn Williams. However, if both Alex and DeShawn are born in the same neighborhood, have the same educational resources and economic circumstances, there is really no difference in their lifetime income potential. The name is a good indicator of lifetime economic success, but not the cause.

Met one who called herself "Morgan". I tried talking to her about the car connection, but it was a waste of time. Note to self: "don't try to have a conversation with a stripper."

When I was still in the UK I had to visit a supplier and met with a guy called Dick Short. The funny thing was that HE told you his name was Dick and asked you not to call him Richard. Yup, he actually chose to be called Dick Short.

I wasn't going to argure - he must have been about 6'7" so I guess the joke was on me.

I assume you refer to the purple one with the suckers on her head...

The venerable Backyardigan "Uniqua"

I've threatened to name my last child that for about a year now!

It was a running joke with my wife that our first daughter would be named Flotitia Shantay...just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

Neither "Lexus" or "Mercedes" were of Spanish descent...if I had to guess, I would probably say African.

When I was in New York, a young woman named Mrs. Colon told me she wanted to name her newborn son after the doctor who delivered him. I told her the doctors name was Sigmoid. I saw the birth certificate later... Sigmoid Colon.

I still feel kind of bad about that.