• SpoopyKing@lemmy.sdf.org
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    8 days ago

    One of my favorite court transcripts is Sheppard v. Speir.

    The Court:  All right.   Now, do you have some objection to him being renamed Samuel Charles?

    Sheppard:  Yes.

    The Court:  Why? You think it’s better for his name to be Weather’by Dot Com Chanel-

    Sheppard:  Well, the-

    The Court:  Just a minute for the record.

    Sheppard:  Sorry.

    The Court:  Chanel Fourcast, spelled F-o-u-r-c-a-s-t?   And in response to that question, I want you to think about what he’s going to be-what his life is going to be like when he enters the first grade and has to fill out all [the] paperwork where you fill out-this little kid fills out his last name and his first name and his middle name, okay?   So I just want-if your answer to that is yes, you think his name is better today than it would be with Samuel Charles, as his father would like to name him and why.   Go ahead.

    Sheppard:  Yes, I think it’s better this way.

    • Tonava@sopuli.xyz
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      8 days ago

      That was a wild read, thanks for sharing. I’m so glad the kid had a father that cared, and that he got the custody and succeeded in changing that name!

    • weariedfae@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      Read the whole thing. That was wild. I think, alone, Weatherby (said together) isn’t the worst name I’ve ever heard but all the rest is cuckoo banana pants. Based on what came out of the court proceedings that woman had some PROBLEMS.

  • Zink@programming.dev
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    8 days ago

    When choosing my son’s name I had two rules:

    1. No super popular top 10 or 20 name. There were plenty of very popular choices that I liked as names. But, I figured let’s try to find something at least a little unique for various reasons.

    However!

    1. They shall not need to spell their name every time they tell it to somebody. This implies a few things, like choosing an established first name people have heard before rather than making something up, and using the common spelling of that name.
    • GiveOver@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      I had a very similar strategy, except I was trying to avoid top 50. I once told a stranger my kid’s name and they said “I like it. Unique, but not weird”. That comment made me so happy!

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        7 days ago

        Yeah, I wasn’t very particular about how far up the list. Top 50 was probably too much in most cases.

        Looking back for my son’s birth year, his name is just barely in the top 100 for boys. So top 200 overall.

        That’s actually more popular than I expected it to be, but it is definitely in the very broad sweet spot we’re talking about.

        Looking back at my birth year, my name is in the top 10! That’s even more surprising because it didn’t feel that way at all. I think there was one other kid with the same name in my graduating class of hundreds. Yet I distinctly remember there was one class one year that had SIX "John"s.

        edit: that’s six Johns out of a single classroom of maybe 30 people at most, not a different graduating class. They were in my grade!

    • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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      8 days ago

      Do people just hate their children? There’s so many good names to choose, just the longest list of them. There’s nicknames upon nicknames, but every goddamn child has to have a combination of letters that’ve never been used before. Look, I’m not saying that everyone should name their kids Edith and Edward, but we also don’t need a bunch of Brekinleighlynnes and Jahckxsonz running around. I feel very passionately about this subject. Pick a name that’s either been used before (that isn’t ass), or at least a name that sounds like a fucking name. I feel very strongly about this subject.

      • MotoAsh@piefed.social
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        8 days ago

        They just think they’re the only people that matter in the world. Main Character Syndrome is a wild drug.

      • foofiepie@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        This whole post triggered me.

        I love my mum and dad very much.

        But it gets somewhat tedious when you have to spell your name quite possibly over a hundred thousand times in your lifetime.

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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          8 days ago

          My name is is 8 letters long. 15 if you want to count my moddle name and spaces. Unfortunately i have a very uncommon first name, and an even less common last name that makes me 100% the only person on earth with my name.

          • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            Ok BobBarkerBagels, we know it’s you.

            (I think the math checks out - it’s very late or very early)

        • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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          8 days ago

          Yeah, it’s annoying to spell my 5 letter last name once in a while. I can only imagine it gets quite a bit worse with increasing frequency and letters. If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your first name?

            • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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              8 days ago

              It’s a valid question in a convo about names. I’m curious lol I understand the need for privacy, it’s important. I asked if they’d be willing to share, I just like crying at Tragedeighs once in a while.

          • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            As someone with a long name, the bane of my existence is signing online forms without a touch screen. I just had to sign off on four different consent forms online for a new doctor’s office - using my mouse.

            I usually take time with my signature, but for this I did the lazy thing of a stylized first letter, followed by a squiggle. I don’t like doing that and don’t want to do that… but I’m tired, y’all.

      • Instigate@aussie.zone
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        8 days ago

        Having previously worked in child protection for almost a decade I can tell you that children with these kind of misspelled names are over-represented in the children we received reports about. I worked at a report intake and assessment hub and did over 5000 reports in my tenure there, and I saw SO MANY of these kinds of names.

        Not all kids with these names end up being abused or neglected, but a lot of abused or neglected kids have these names.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        My oldest has a name from one of my grandparents’ ancestors (I think their grandparent or great-grandparent) that’s not common in my country (my grandparent was an immigrant). The name is easy to pronounce, but unfortunately there’s a celebrity with a similar name, so people always mistake it for that name.

        The other two are very common here and haven’t caused issues. But the one foreign name has been a serious problem, but fortunately my kid loves their name, and it’s unique without being a pain to spell.

  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 days ago

    At my job, I come across a lot of children’s names. So many, that I can actually sympathize with parents who want an odd name. Names are supposed to be a unique identifier, so if you wanna name a kid “Revolution Fighter” or “Czarlanda,” I get it. I can certainly find a kid with that name in our databases faster than I can find a “John Anderson” or an “Adam Wu.”

    What really kills me is parents who name their kids a normal sounding name, but with an insane spelling. I’m talking like “Shelley” spelled “Schelei” or “Alexander” spelled “Alexzander.” You’re not being clever or cute, you’re just going to make your child’s life unnecessarily harder as they have to spell their name out every. single. time.

    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      We still have about 5 years before the first wave of incorrectly-spelled Khaleesis start showing up at county courthouses en masse.

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      That spelling of Alexzander a lot of times comes from non American countries (maybe Czech? Unsure)

      Look at Alex Lifesons real name lol. I cant spell it

      • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 days ago

        Not actually why they did it. I can quote the parent here, because for some reason they felt the need to immediately justify the spelling. “I just thought it’d be cool to do something different.”

      • scutiger@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        He has a Serbian name though, which is definitely not the same as just spelling it weird on purpose.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      name out every. single. time.

      “Czarlanda,” I get it. I

      Names aren’t supposed to be unique. Your whole name doesn’t even need to be unique. And when you adda middle-name or two, no matter what basic ass names you’ve chosen it’s gonna be unlikely that anyone within reasonable distance would be named exactly the same.

      Thank God my country has a law preventing this type of child abuse

  • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 days ago

    So many people don’t understand that children are people and people have rights. You are responsible for your children, you don’t own them. If you don’t like that, simply don’t have kids.

    • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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      7 days ago

      To the people downvoting this, you are the problem.

      Children are people, not your property. You owe your kids a loving, caring, and supportive environment because it was your choice to have them. They did not choose to be born, they did not choose you as parents, they do not owe you anything. If you treat them well, they will support you and love you. If they do not, then you did something wrong.

      If you think your children owe you anything, don’t have kids and go see a therapist.

  • Signtist@bookwyr.me
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    8 days ago

    As of last week I’ve now met 2 different people named Abcde, pronounced ab-sid-ee. Nice enough sounding name, but just the worst spelling.

  • hash@slrpnk.net
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    8 days ago

    This is where I bitch about my white people Utah name but I’m not willing to dox myself.