I came across this funny blog article on the Sydney Morning Herald site that asks why parents would give their children weird names.

Celebrities have given us some good one, like the Moon Unit and Scatman mentioned in the article but can you think of others?

(check out this site for some funny responses to unusual names. Be warned though there is some swear words in this one but nothing too serious)

Great article and I agree on most points.

Having worked as a high school teacher and in doctors' offices gives one the opportunity to come across a multitude of strange names.

The one that really astounded me was Kes'ae for a little girl - complete with a (useless) apostrophe in the middle!

Now you could have understood this if the name was a foreign name but this child's parents were Australian and simply made it up. What a burden for this poor kid - no-one is ever likely to spell or pronounce it correctly.

I named my daughter Rhiannon because I liked it. In many parts of Europe, Rhiannon is not an odd name. In Pennsylvania, it's a very odd name. I've never been one for Sarah or John (my apologies to our Sarahs and Johns), so I chose a name that reflected my heritage. I did think ahead enough to give her a more common middle name, which she hates. Go figure.

I seem to run into kids with food names a lot around here. I've met a Dijon an DuJour and an Ambrosia. Oh, and then there's Ambrosia's brother Que. I went to school with a boy named Frank Stein. Not bad, but his middle inital was N.

I posted a comment, not sure if it showed up, all about my friend Excel.

D'oh! I left one off. A friend of a friend has the last name Case. He always jokes that he'll name his kids Justin and Charity.

I graduated high school with a girl named Precious. She may be precious, but I don't feel that to be a name.

Funny you should say that
I am teaching a class of mainly Chinese children at the moment, whose parents are known for 'daring to be different.'
I just feel that calling your daughter'Wind' might give you a lot to answer for!(eg"Did you pass Wind on your way to school? etc etc)Poor little mite!

What about poor little Shiloh Pitt (Brad and Angelina's offspring)?

How long will it take her school friends to spoonerise her name?!

The Morning Herald article is really amusing, and it's nice to find a newspaper publishing something which isn't all doom and gloom for a change! I find it difficult to believe though that Germans have a law forcing parents to choose a name from a certain list, and can't see how they can apply this to the many foreigners, particularly other Europeans, who live in Germany.
The most unusual name which comes to mind is Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, the daughter of singer Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates. Paula obviously liked giving her kids unusual names, and named her daughters by Bob Geldof, Peaches and Fifi Trixabelle, admittedly not as unusual as 'HHTL' - I wonder if Sir Bob vetoed any more unusual names!
I found a survey by Sky Digital listing the top twenty most unusual British celebrity children's names as chosen by viewers, with the parents in brackets, which are :-
1. Moon Unit (Frank and Gail Zappa)
2. Fifi Trixibelle (Paula Yates and Bob Geldof)
3. Satchel (Mia Farrow and Woody Allen)
4. Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin)
5. Daisy Boo (Julia and Jamie Oliver)
6. Rumer (Demi Moore and Bruce Willis)
7. Peaches (Paula Yates and Bob Geldof)
8. River (Arlyn and John Phoenix)
9. Rocco (Madonna and Guy Ritchie)
10. Nell Marmalade (Helen Baxendale and David Eliot)
11. Maddox (adopted by Angelina Jolie)
12. Tiger Lily Heavenly Hirani (Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence)
13. Dweezil (Frank/Gail Zappa)
14. Brooklyn (Victoria/David Beckham)
15. Eugenie (Sarah Ferguson/Prince Andrew)
16. Zowie (Angie and David Bowie)
17. Rolan (Gloria Jones and Marc Bolan)
18. Phoenix Chi (Mel C and Jimmy Gulzar)
19. Coco (Courtney Cox and David Arquette)
20. Romeo (Victoria and David Beckham
I've always though Gaylord was very strange name to give a boy, but it seems to be quite common in the USA.

As far as Frank Zappa's children go - they like their unusual names. Moon Unit has said so.

When Dweezil Zappa was born the hospital refused to register his name as Dweezil and his name on his birth certificate was "Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa". However he was always called Dweezil. When he found out Dweezil was not his real name he insisted that the name on his birth certificate be changed.

Zappa's other two children are Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa (he was name after Ahmet Ertegün pf Atlantic records) and Diva Muffin Zappa (so named because she had the loudest cry of the babies in the hospital nursery).

I sometimes wonder whether these celebrities are having a laugh. Maybe they know that their children will be in the news (simply because of who their parents are), so they give them bizarre names to see if newsreaders can keep a straight face when having to say them.

A radio comedy programme once included a spoof news item which went something like "Police searching Paula Yates' flat found speed, angel dust and ecstasy - but no trace of her other child."

Actually. Madonna's Rocco seems a fairly ordinary name for someone of Italian extraction. Saint Roch or Rocco has traditionally been widely venerated in Latin countries, though he's probably not well known to us Anglo-Saxons.

I knew people that called their son Louden - the parent were even making jokes about it! "His middle name should be 'obnoxious'!"

THe ones that get me are the odd spellings - from that second link in the first post:

I love the name Savannah pronounced sah-van-ah and sah-vah-na, but I like the 2nd one more and since Savannah is so popular as the first pronounciation I'd like to get a new spelling for it pronounced sah-vah-nah. I don't really like Savahnah and can't think of really anything else. Any help?

Ask and ye shall receive! (Again, someone makes the mistake that if they want to name their kid a popular name, they should misspell it to make them "special." [sound of forehead slap.]) Some of the many, many suggestions:

Sevahna, Sivahna, Savahna, Sevanah, Savanah, Savonna, Sivonna, Sevonna, Sevonah, Savonah, Sivonah, Savaunnah, Savaunah, Sivaunna, Sevaunah, Sevanah, Sivanna, Savana, Sovanna, Sabhanna, Sivaughna, Syvahnah.

Oh my goodness, all those variations!

My real name is Carole, with an 'e', and you have no idea how much trouble that poor little 'e' causes and it isn't such an unusual name or spelling! So I can imagine what it must be like for people whose names have really unusual spellings.

I've spent my whole life putting up with my name being mispelled as "Carol" and telling people it has an "e" on the end of it. They still never spell it right even after I've explained it. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have spelled my name carefully over the telephone, and then received mail addressed to "Carol Withaney". It was only funny the first time it happened!

Funnily enough, I work with someone who complains bitterly about people who don't spell her name correctly (Diane with one 'n') and yet she constantly spells my name without the 'e', despite the fact that she probably read hundreds of e-mails signed by me - you would think she'd have noticed the spelling by now.

I know a lady with the first name of "Stormy". It seems she was born during a thunder storm. I rather like it.

Sometimes an old-fashioned name is quite lovely. Take, for example, "Ophelia". That is a lovely name and it made her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rass quite proud.

I anglicised the spelling of my daughter's name so she would not have it mispronounced, but unfortunately it hasn't really worked . . . her name is Irish Gaelic, spelt (in that language) 'Róisín' (pronounced 'Ro-sheen'), in Australia this would have (and was in the case of a former Premier's wife) been mispronounced, spoken as written, 'Roy-zin' . . . so I gave my daughter the name 'Roishene' . . . it means Little Rose and with Irish heritage and a couple of 'Roses' in the family it fitted nicely . . . she is the only one in her entire school and she's quite pleased that she's a 'one-off'!

On a themed note, friends of a friend in the US have children Ivy and Forest . . . and in the true tradition of Aussie 'rhyming' a friend called Wayne has a brother Shayne and a sister Jayne!

My "real life" name has various spellings too To be honest, I prefer the old-fashioned names, rather than the modern names

Odd - some of the listed names aren;t odd at all; just come from a different culture, Eugenie is a perfectly good French name, Rhiannon is well-known here (though not always spelled that way) and Rumer is the name of a distinguished author, Rumer Godden.

I was at school with a Malcome and a Dallas. My cousin is Gerwyn, and my aunt was Delce. My mother's second name is Nancie, and another cousin is Royal. Another aunt was Leila, which isn;t common. My surname (like Carole's first name) is frequently misspelled even after I have spelled it.

Odgers becomes Hodgers, Hodges, Rogers, Hodgetts, Horton, Ogera and many more. As I ask people - Do I Look Like A Person Who Drops Her H?

Yes don't you just love it when people get your name wrong? I have a double barrelled first name and had a double barrelled maiden name . . . which was Dutch and thus not easily pronounced nor spelled (even though I too carefully enunciated when spelling same!). When I married I took my husbands name and thought, 'finally', that I would have no trouble with the spelling etc of same. How wrong can you be?

Beattie became Beattle (that was the Taxation Office), Betatie (the Phone Company), Beatty, Beattee oh it just goes on . . . and my double barrelled first name? I'll not go into that, I'd be here all night . . .

People say that my name and my daughters have odd names. Katiana, Aiyana and Rozena.
Katiana - Russian meaning "peace" as my mums dad was russian.
I named my daughters Aiyana and Rozena which are both native american names from my dads side of the family.

Hey Indiequeen, after that remark about the Case family, you'd better do ing's quiz "14 to the case" which is a whole quiz about the Case Family.

http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/BrainTeasers/14-to-the-Case-208773.html

Scottie

Working in an elementary school as I did early in my career, you encounter some strange names. I've seen a Bunny Easter, a girl named Stormy, and a little boy whose first name was Mister. You have to really wonder why people would do this to their children. Oh, and a "psuedo" uncle of mine in the early 70's changed his last name to Joy and named his son Beyond.

Has anyone ever heard the name 'Oco'? My father's name was Oco deArmond, and we were always baffled by it. The deArmond part, I am assuming is French, but the Oco part still draws a blank. I've looked everywhere I know to look.
Could Grandma J have made it up?

OKay, got a good one for you...

A friend from high school... her dad was in the army with a guy who had the last name Commode. Yeah... his first name was Johnny.

I went to camp with Valentine Hart.

You may have heard this one...

The Lear family (as in Lear jets?) named their daughter Shanda. Sound it out... Shanda Lear.

And you would be amazed how many people can misspell MY name. I mean, how simple is Kelly? I get Kelley, Kelli, Keli, and who knows what else.

The worst names I ever heard about were in the baby book I bought when pregnant. They talked about twin girls named Kate and Duplikate, and twin boys named Pete and Repete.

Oh what a book that is Skunkee i'd love to see it lol.

I called my eldest Zachary (Zac for short) when I took him for his first dental appointment the receptionist said "Zachary what a name poor boy!"
I was so shocked at her retort, it's not such an unusual name surely grrrr!