Name that Kid!!

This weekend the new Social Security administration's list of most popular names in the US was released. Naming your child is one of the most important jobs you have- screw the name up and your kid is already at a disadvantage in life before he or she has done anything else except breathe. I have been known to be pretty mean about mocking stupid names. I find it hard to feel bad about this. Why would you give your kid a stupid name?

This is touchy, because judging names can bring out some really nasty prejudices around culture, ethnicity, religion, etc. There are plenty of unusual names that are culturally acceptable, family names, celebrities trying to be creative, names that mean something to you or your partner, and I'm not calling them stupid. (OK, Apple is kind of stupid.) But I take more of a "to each her own" about creativity or cultural acceptability.

Stupid names to me are misspelled names. Names that are otherwise common in the United States, or at least heard from time to time, with random a random "y" or "h" thrown in to make the child "unique".

I'll give you some examples. I'm on some message boards currently for parents or parents-to-be, mainly women. There are many topics you can peruse and if you want, you can make a signature for any postings you might make. Just from the signatures alone, I have gathered a short list of the most horrendously misspelled names that these parents either have named their new children or plan to name them when they are born in the coming months. Poor kids. Here is my very mean list:

Evahlyn
Ellexis
Baleigh
Emercyn
Peiyton
Raevyn
Khenedii
Acelan Caedeau
Braytlee
Chloeigh
Kharleigh
Lyliann and Kaelynn (sisters)
Rymington
Blakesley

All I can really say is WTF? Does throwing an "e" and a "y" into Raven really add some uniqueness to your new daughter? Or does it just destine her for years of having to spell that name for every teacher, coach, and potential employer she meets, right before she takes her seat next to another person with the exact same name just spelled correctly? Could you really take "President Evahlyn" seriously?! Is Braytlee really a family name if all you have is that Grandma's maiden name was Lee?

Misspelled names are so common that the Top 1000 baby names on the SS website actually include many misspelled versions of common names. Abigail makes the top 10 names from 2008. But also included in the top 1000 are Abagail and Abbigail. If you want creativity, you might also try Abigayle or Abbygaihl.

But in the end, you have still given your child the 8th most popular name in the country for the year in which she was born. I'm not knocking popular names, either. Some of them are really nice names- especially for boys. Jacob and Ethan are really strong, lovely names. I only want to point out that making them Jakeb or Ethyn don't change the name, they just make me question how bright your parents are.

As long as I'm on the judgemental soapbox, I'll go ahead and point out that the female name Nevaeh (Nuh-vay-uh) is one of the weird recent and relatively popular creations of what I'm guessing are very young parents and is meant to be "Heaven" backwards. A recent birth at the hospital where I work part time yielded this name- but spelled "Neveah". This is not Heaven backwards. I just have to get that off my chest.