Ray

H.M.Queen Adelaide Consort of William IV 1792-1849...

callé

couldnt resist this one.
some of the people that come in to the office....
Frosty Burr
cemetary ( insisted it is pronounced sa-mah-te ree)
Latrene
Bribane
Sameesha
loads of them, to many to name here lol.

ladylisa

I think its a shame when parents give their kids normal names but miss pell them to be unusual. Cant they see the child is going to spend the rest of its life having to spell their name to everyone.

David Bowie's son is called Zowie Bowie. Zowie changed his name to Joe.

Ikke

It's a good job that Mr and Mrs Wanker weren't fans of Shaking Stevens

Just Jenney

This has been an on-going trend for the past 20-25 years or so. I get annoyed by seeing all these "Morgan Smith" and "Madison Lange" names because, honestly, I don't like having to guess what gender that person is!

My first husband, Ian and his wife just had their first baby, a girl they named Rafferty Valencia. I love the Valencia part, but Rafferty? For a girl? Just too harsh for me. Apparently it's a family name. They're going to call her "Ray" but spell it "Rae" -- even more confusing. Poor child.

Speaking of Ian, he never knew any other Ians while growing up. He always liked that, because it made him feel unique. He didn't like that fact that no one could pronounce it or spell it, but that isn't a problem anymore, because so many people have kids named Ian now.

Of course, I experienced the flip side of that. My name, Jennifer, was the number one girl name in America for three decades straight. My parents said they picked the name Jennifer when I was born back in 1972 because it "was pretty but wasn't that common". Umm, Mom and Dad, were you paying attention AT ALL!?! Jennifer became so popular that now it's like the anti-christ of names -- there's even a best-selling baby name book called "Beyond Jennifer and Jason"!

In fact, the reason that I spell my nickname JENNEY is because I had so many Jennys in my classes -- usually 7 or 8 in a classroom of 20 kids -- that we were always getting confused. This was a particular problem in middle school when we were passing gossipy notes back and forth, and we couldn't keep all the Jennys straight. So we picked different spellings -- I chose Jenney and it stuck, I've used it ever since.

My brother, David, has now continued the give-your-child-the-most-popular-name-in-the-country trend by naming his son Jacob and daughter Emily -- the most popular American boy and girl names for the past few years. Good job with that creativity, Dave! *thumbs up*

~ Jenney

ps. I remember seeing racks of keychains with names on them in New Zealand and England and discovering how different name trends are compared to the US. For instance, I had never heard of the name Philippa before; didn't even know how to pronounce it. And who names their kid Clive? What kind of name is that?!! On the other hand, I always thought the name Nigel was pretty cool, until Mark told me that it's considered nerdy in Britain. So, what do you know?!! (My apologies to anyone named Clive or Nigel, no offense intended!)

ladylisa

You so right with the key chain part. Thats where you can see what kind of names are popular with a nation. There were three other Lisa's in my year at school and I hated that and I always swore I would never do that to my child. I remember in assembly one time the headmaster holding up the contents of the lost property basket and pulling out a pair of wellie boots with 'Lisa' inscribed in them. He made all Lisa's stand up amist loads of giggles throughout the school. I was beetroot. He asked each Lisa in turn if they were theirs. Each said no including me. I knew they were mine but there was no way I was owning up to anything!

Talk about crazy if my mum had had her way she wanted to call me Dennet as in Janet but D instead. Thank god my Dad put his foot down.

I know a lady called Deniece who called her daughter Berniece...

Bob

Clive Owen, Clive Woodward...there's a few, it ain't a bad name...called the rat Clive after Woodward

But it is amusing how different names are popular in different countries and the variations there are...and perhaps only really noticed more horrendously stupid names over here because quitea bit of the extended family have kids...

yorkshirelass

One of my best friends back in England told me there is a girl called Yankshire in her daughter's school! Really!!!

CitySimon

Slighly off topic...

One of my friends is pregnant and was talking about what name to call the kid...

They had settled on John Thomas up until the point that I explained what a John Thomas was in England.

mandpete

I am called Amanda and my 8 year old daughter is called Laura. Every time I have to give our names to anyone they instantly call me Laura and her Amanda. One woman commented that Amanda is a very modern name here and that Laura is a very old fashioned name. I think it's the opposite way round in England. When I was young Amanda was quite a common name and there were quite a few little girls called Laura in my daughter's UK school.

doctor scrumpy

Be fair, the kid had a 2nd name too, United.

ladylisa

Our Neighbours just got a beautiful little puppy and told us they hadn't decided upon a name yet. The dog is a female German Shorthaired Pointer. So off I went to the internet and pulled up German girls names (I was so worried they would call it cookie or biscuit or something daft) So I proudly gave her 4 sheets of names and couldnt help pointing out a few that I thought were lovely A few days later they told me that they had decided upon a name and it was German. Oh great I said and what will it be...they decided upon 'Nixie'!!!

Duncan Roberts

I went to school with a guy (who I hope doesn't read this site!) whos last name was Gay. That's not too bad, a little unfortunate when you are 12 or 13, but it's what his parents did to him and his brothers that I still can't believe. His full name was Francis Ian Roy Steven Thomas Gay. now if you spell out his initials you will see what I mean. His brothers - Simon, Theodore and Filipe (there may have been another but I can't remember). I'll give you 3 guesses as to what their initials were.

woodsey

a woman back in England I know called her son 'Fox'...eh?

Elvira

What, more than Rupert?