Judge gets fed up with bad child names, forces name change

Metatwaddle · Post by **Metatwaddle** » 2008-07-24 05:40pm

I knew a girl who swore that her mom (who worked in a pregnancy ward) had seen a mother who named her daughter Shithead (pronounced shi-THEED). No idea if it's true, but I wouldn't put it past some people.

Kodiak · Post by **Kodiak** » 2008-07-24 05:43pm

Metatwaddle wrote:I knew a girl who swore that her mom (who worked in a pregnancy ward) had seen a mother who named her daughter Shithead (pronounced shi-THEED). No idea if it's true, but I wouldn't put it past some people.

I've heard that one in Lewis Black's stand-up routine, so take it for what it's worth. There are famous one's like Lemonjello and Orangello, as well as Asshole (Ah-sa-ho-lee), but I chalk those up to urban legends. When my wife and I were pondering baby names Chewie linked me to a website where a woman had actually posted legitimate names either from baby-name forums or from public records, all of which were hilarious.

Kodiak · Post by **Kodiak** » 2008-07-24 05:48pm

Ghetto edit

Link to baby name horror stories here

Also, check out the letter of the week

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2008-07-24 06:08pm

I went to school with a guy named "Phuc." He went by "Pho," at school, but his parents were immigrants from SE Asia and so I assume that they named him without knowing it was an obscenity in the US (or, perhaps, moved here afterwards).

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2008-07-24 06:15pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
LadyTevar wrote:We're still waiting for the day the mother of "Sha'9C" comes to get a copy of the kid's birth certificate. It's never been filed, because she'd ignored all attempted to contact her with a 'suggestion' to rename the child.

Yes, we can do that. And she's going to be very upset when we pull out all the paperwork showing how we tried to contact her for a full 6 months. Hell, we had her hospital and her doctor trying to get her to talk to us. So, kid's not on file, she's going to have to jump through several hoops, all because she named the kid something stupid.
So, does the child have a legal name? Is it 'provisional', or how does it work? This sort of thing is interesting to me, for reasons beyond my understanding.

Far as I know, it's never been signed by a registrar, and therefore the certificate is not legal or filed. It has never been sent to the County of Birth as a registered Birth. It's still sitting in a file with a "DO NOT ISSUE: SEE STATE REGISTRAR" note attached.

The mother can be calling her kid whatever she likes, but when she comes in to get the kid enrolled in school (which is usually the first time parents actually -see- the real certificate), she's not going to be able to get it until that name's straightened out. Who knows, by then (in 3yrs or so?) she may have changed how she spells the kid's name anyway.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2008-07-24 06:20pm

Metatwaddle wrote:I knew a girl who swore that her mom (who worked in a pregnancy ward) had seen a mother who named her daughter Shithead (pronounced shi-THEED). No idea if it's true, but I wouldn't put it past some people.

Shi-theed is an actual Hindu name of some antiquity from what I understand. It's just English that makes it Shithead. We've had this happen in our office, so this isn't urban legend. Although, the one woman who thought "Gonorrhea" was a pretty-sounding name still takes the cake. No clue what her nationality was, but SirBoss got her to change her mind.

FSTargetDrone · Post by **FSTargetDrone** » 2008-07-24 06:27pm

Lord Pounder wrote:Despite all my liberal and left wing beliefs it's shit like that that makes me wish people had to pass an IQ test before they where allowed to breed.

I agree. Perhaps it's an unjustified assumption on my part, but it just seems that the kind of person who even considers such a name (leaving aside real names featuring pronunciations that translate poorly into English) is grossly immature and not the kind of person that really should be a parent. It's almost like these people are giving some inane name to a pet.

Rekkon · Post by **Rekkon** » 2008-07-24 06:45pm

Exploits of a Mom

Oni Koneko Damien · Post by **Oni Koneko Damien** » 2008-07-24 06:52pm

I wouldn't mind seeing people get a state-issued name at birth, names constantly rotated and recorded so that not too many people with the same name crop up in any one area. Once they become adults, they're free to change it to whatever the hell they like then.

Granted, that'd be pretty much as close as you can get to a literal 'nanny' government, but there seems to be a lot of people who cannot handle the responsibility of giving their children a name that won't make them non-functional in society.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2008-07-24 07:42pm

Metatwaddle wrote:I knew a girl who swore that her mom (who worked in a pregnancy ward) had seen a mother who named her daughter Shithead (pronounced shi-THEED). No idea if it's true, but I wouldn't put it past some people.

A friend's boyfriend has the name 'shithead'. While I'm not entirely sure that's what is written on his birth certificate - I previously thought that this would have been impossible, but apparently much of society is more actively retarded than I initially thought - but it is certainly what his parents called him up until the point he derived the less-offensive-in-school version, Ted. When I was told that his real name wasn't actually Ted, I expected something which was actually a name.

Incidentally, I hope this judge told the parents to 'choke on my fuck' or something similar. You'd have to actively be an asshole to put the words 'Does The Hula' in a child's first name. This is different to spelling shit with an additional four 'y's and a silent 'p'.

darthbob88 · Post by **darthbob88** » 2008-07-24 08:50pm

In comparison to all this my brother's proposed middle name of Down sounds much less ridiculous; Mark Down Price is still mildly amusing.

Rekkon wrote:Exploits of a Mom

I am obligated to note Tom Lehrer's nonconformist friend Hen3ry. The 3, you see, is silent.

thejester · Post by **thejester** » 2008-07-24 09:04pm

Master of Ossus wrote:I went to school with a guy named "Phuc." He went by "Pho," at school, but his parents were immigrants from SE Asia and so I assume that they named him without knowing it was an obscenity in the US (or, perhaps, moved here afterwards).

That's a common Vietnamese name, IIRC. Australian troops served in Phuoc Ty province during the war.

Schuyler Colfax · Post by **Schuyler Colfax** » 2008-07-24 09:28pm

darthbob88 wrote:In comparison to all this my brother's proposed middle name of Down sounds much less ridiculous; Mark Down Price is still mildly amusing.

Mildly??? That's fucking hilarious.

Some of these names (not including the ones with numbers in them and shithead) are the the kind of things I would joke about to lighten the mood, while thinking of a child's name. I can't fathom the thought of why someone would seriously name their child some of the ones that have been listed, unless they wanted people to beat up their kids.

Names like Apple are just weird, I can't blame them for trying to be original but, Apple is never going to catch on.

Gee, I thought I had a crappy middle name and the thought of my dad wanted it to be my first name is just disturbing.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2008-07-24 09:46pm

My friend Neal McNeal went out with a girl name December Winters. Good thing it didn't last.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-07-24 09:46pm

Raw Shark wrote:
Dooey Jo wrote:"Number 16 Bus Shelter" was allowed
"Your Honor, as Number 16 Bus Shelter's parents we can solemnly attest that he owes his entire existence to his namesake. That shelter brought us together for the first time, protected us from catching pneuminia in the rain, and later that day served as the backdrop for the consummation of our love. It would be a grave dishonor to go back on our promise to name him after it."

Not only that, but surely it gave considerable comfort to the child's grandparents, Victoria Station Platform 9 and Cunard White Star Dock, that he was given such a distinguished moniker.

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2008-07-25 04:39am

Edi wrote:It's goddamn incomprehensible just how fucking idiotic the assholes who come up with this kind of shit are. Weren't any of them ever teased or picked on when they were kids?

I would say that many of them are probably hippies who simply can't think far enough ahead, or can't think at all.

Edi wrote:Fortunately Finland has laws on the books that make it categorically impossible to give names like that to children. Names must comply with a certain set of guidelines, you can only have a limited number of names and they must be approved by the Census Office. So the examples in the article would get rejected out of hand.

We got laws like that in Norway too, but apparently that makes us Very Bad! (seriously there's a section where only approved names are permitted).

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2008-07-25 05:15am

She's not actually from Hawaii, that was the full name; Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2008-07-25 06:17am

*facepalm* That's even worse. At least Talula Does The Hula rhymes.

Post by **Edi** » 2008-07-25 07:09am

Norseman wrote:
Edi wrote:Fortunately Finland has laws on the books that make it categorically impossible to give names like that to children. Names must comply with a certain set of guidelines, you can only have a limited number of names and they must be approved by the Census Office. So the examples in the article would get rejected out of hand.
We got laws like that in Norway too, but apparently that makes us Very Bad! (seriously there's a section where only approved names are permitted).

Ours has a similar section, but it is mostly a dead letter and it's got mitigating clauses anyway. But it makes for a very handy blunt instrument to beat recalcitrant fuckwits with.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-07-25 07:42am

My god, so many references to be made...

Anathema Device, Chlamydia Harper, My God He's Heavy the First, Bad Ass (granted that that's a town, not a person), Ford Prefect, Harley Quinn Smith...

Granted that I do tend to think that some odd (mostly geeky) names are just fine for a kid - I wouldn't mind naming a child of mine "Ford Prefect lastname", except for the fact that I don't have any dead relatives with an "F" name - but some of those kids' names are just beyond the pale.

I still tend to think that the judge is probably a jackass who happens to be in the right just because of how insanely stupid the names are, though.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-07-25 07:53am

Oh, dang, and how could I forget little Bobby Tables - full name "Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--"?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2008-07-25 09:18am

Oni Koneko Damien wrote:I wouldn't mind seeing people get a state-issued name at birth, names constantly rotated and recorded so that not too many people with the same name crop up in any one area. Once they become adults, they're free to change it to whatever the hell they like then.

Granted, that'd be pretty much as close as you can get to a literal 'nanny' government, but there seems to be a lot of people who cannot handle the responsibility of giving their children a name that won't make them non-functional in society.

That's an incredible overreaction to very small problem.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2008-07-25 12:48pm

When I was on the phones doing customer service surveys (for banks and casino's mainly) back while I was studying in Uni, we always used to see some of the weirdest names come up, all of which were legitimate. Made pretty good breakroom gossip, when we weren't swapping stories about the idiocy of some respondants. There were just as many parents giving their children idiotic names as there were names that simply had very different meanings in English, and occasionally other languages as well.

Oddities that stick in my mind include the strangely common Richard Head, the "my parents were hippies" Apple Tree, an Aboriginal with the surname Eromanga (meaning "perverted comic books" in Japanese, but is also the name of a geographic location here in Australia), Suk Man Kok. and Phoc Yuu. One of the oddest I can remember was probably Jack Son Wang. I don't know if he just picked Jack as an English nickname like a number of exchange students I've seen, or if it was a name given to him, but it certainly caused a few chuckles around the call center at the time.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2008-07-26 03:04am

Lord Pounder wrote:Despite all my liberal and left wing beliefs it's shit like that that makes me wish people had to pass an IQ test before they where allowed to breed.

IQ tests wouldn't stop this crap. A little tighter regulation would.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-07-26 03:48am

No one ever believes me when I tell them this, but it's 100% true. I went to Junior High and High School and shared several classes with one Michael Hunt. And yes, he went by "Mike". In fact in a class in 9th grade we had a substitute one day that wigged out when taking roll call. To the point that School Administrators had to actually confirm to her that we actually had a kid enrolled going by that name before she calmed down.