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17 sibling names that made everyone question what their parents were thinking

Brothers named Oscar and Grover? No.

via Canva/Photos

Fraternal twins named Luke and Leah.

If you’ve been thinking that young people’s names are getting stranger and more unique, you’re not wrong. Studies show that over the past few decades, more Americans have been given uncommon names at birth, and researchers believe this is a sign of growing individualism. “As American culture has become more individualistic, parents have favored giving children names that help them stand out – and that means more unique names and fewer common names” Dr. Jean Twenge said, according to the BBC.

Having a baby and giving it a name that people haven’t heard before is also a sign of affluence. “When you have lots of resources and are less worried about scarcity, you can afford to stick out a little bit. In fact, it may be advantageous to go away from the crowd,” Dr. Michael Varnum said, according to the BBC. “There may be more opportunities to innovate, for example. If you don’t have a lot of resources or wealth, the better strategy might be conformity and to do what most people are doing.”

When it comes to strange names that make people wonder, “What were their parents thinking?" Some parents are repeat offenders and give some or all of their children unique names. But at least when siblings share unique names, they don’t feel so alone. They have a shoulder to cry on and someone to back them up when they are made fun of at school.



A Redditor asked the NameNerds forum for people to share the “sibling names have you come across, which made you think ‘hmmmm…’” and the responses didn’t disappoint. Here are 17 of the most “questionable” sibling names.

1. Brothers: Grover and Oscar

"Parents claim Grover Washington & Oscar Peterson; I say Sesame Street."

2. Twins: Archer and Hunter

"All I could think was would they name the next one gatherer?"

"On the bright side, at least they didn't go with Beau and Arrow."

3. Twins: Damian and Damion

"Maybe it's my southern accent, but are these not pronounced the same?"

4. Twins: Jenna and Jena

"How did they distinguish Jenna from Jena verbally?"



5. Fraternal Twins: Charles and Charlotte

"Let's just say my birth name gave me depression throughout my whole childhood and teenage years. I changed my name as soon as I could. I also know another pair of boy-girl twins named Ronald and Hermione (after Harry Potter's friends). Ron hates his name because he said it's like being named Romeo and Juliet as siblings."

6. Sisters: Millie Robin and Mollie Ribbon

"What bothers me most about that is that, obviously, the first one was a selected name, but the other name seems forced to match at the expense of having a middle name that's not just made up. 'Ribbon' for all the wrong reasons."

7. Fraternal Twins: Luke and Leah

"Twins named Luke and Leah (pronounced lay-uh). The mom got REAL mad if you asked if she was a big Star Wars fan. 'They’re names FROM THE BIBLE.' Ma’am, there are more than 3,400 names in the Bible. You picked the two that are also the names of fraternal twins in one of the most popular film series of all time."



8. Brothers: William and Liam

"I’ll be honest and say that I never knew Liam was a nickname for William until I came to this sub. I know people named William and people named Liam, but I don’t know anyone Williams who go by Liam."

9. Eric, Sebastian and Ursula (like 'The Little Mermaid')

"How are you gonna pick a theme and make one of the names the villain????"

"Arielle was right there And Arista .. and Alana ... take your pick."

10. Fraternal Twins: Adam and Eva

"NOOOO OH MY GOD those poor kids. That’s so weird!"


11. Brothers: Scott, Scott and Scott

"I recently met a guy named Scott who has six siblings. Two of his brothers are also named Scott. Three boys in one family, brothers, not half or step-siblings. All named Scott."



12. Andy, Sally, Sally, Tom and Tom

"I know a woman who named 2 of her kids the same name twice. So if her kids didn’t go by their middle names, it would be like Andy, Sally, Sally, Tom, and Tom. Her name was also Sally. She gave her first daughter the exact same first and middle name as her. Hopefully this is understandable- Second daughter had a different middle name. Second daughter gave variations of her or her mom and sisters names to her three daughters, and gave the fourth daughter the exact same first and middle name as her mom and older sister. Older sister was pissed as she didn’t want the name used unless she herself had a daughter… even though she was 40+ yrs old with health issues."

13. Brothers: Arthur and Arthur

"I went to school with two brothers both named Arthur. They went by big Arthur and little Arthur. Their parents reasoned that it was their favourite name and they didn’t want to give the second son a name they liked less than Arthur."

"Depending on where they are from, that’s actually normal. My dad has 5 sisters and they are all named Maria, but have different middle names so everyone calls them by their middle names."



14. Siblings: Destin and Destiny

"Destin?? Like the diaper cream?!"

15. King, Princess, Diamond, Markus, Markella

"Siblings I met named King, Princess, and Diamond. Also other siblings named Markus and Markella after their dad Mark."

16. Siblings: Heather and Heath

"Siblings Heather and Heath. Not twins and they have an older brother and younger sister with completely unrelated names."

"Those are at least pronounced differently."

17. Siblings: Amy, Mya, May, Aym

"I knew sisters in elementary that were Amy, Mya, and May. Their mom was pregnant and we were all so worried the kid would be named Yam… nope they named baby (boy) Aym."

This article originally appeared in January.
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Joy

17 of the funniest times people seriously messed up by mispronouncing someone's name

The name is Patty, not Potty.

via Canva

Three women having a laugh together.

Dale Carnegie famously quipped in his 1936 book "How to Win Friends and Influence People," “Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” This adage is proven true whenever someone mispronounces someone's name, creating an uncomfortable but often hilarious situation.

An English woman named Tabitha, who goes by Tabby, shared a funny story recently where someone got mad at her mother because, with her thick accent, she sounded like she was calling her daughter “Tubby,” which would be a terrible thing for a mom to do. So, Tabby asked other people to share their funny stories of having their name (or their dog’s) mispronounced.

The stories are funny, but they’re also a reminder that from time to time, just about all of us can screw up somebody’s name and that it’s ok to laugh it off if yours is the one that gets mangled. But you still have to wonder what some of these people had stuck in their ears to mishear a name so badly.

Here are 17 of the funniest times someone mispronounced a name.

1. Heather

"Ordered a pizza in French from a small local restaurant here in Quebec, I have a very difficult name for francophones to pronounce and I guess it wasn't clear over the phone. When I went to pick up and asked for the pizza for 'Heather' the lady was like OHHHH, HEATHER!! and handed me a pizza with 'Gisèle??' written on the box."



2. Ham-Butt the Dog

"I met a friendly couple and their friendly dogs. I asked for the dogs' names. The poodle was Toby, the french bulldog was Ham-Butt. I was delighted. This is the best name for a French bulldog ever. My wife walked up as I was petting these puppos. I was still riding high on the glory of such a perfectly matched name. I said: 'Babe babe babe, meet these dogs! This is Toby and this....(pause for dramatic effect) is Ham-Butt.' My wife was delighted. The friendly couple frowned in a confused way and then said: 'His name is Hamlet.' I was very disappointed."

3. Hor-rible

"My last name starts with the syllable 'Hor-'. One of the doctors I work with is an older Indian woman and likes to call people she considers friends by their last name. She was working with a resident and needed help so she literally just shouted 'WHORE' across the lab. The resident was mortified, but the boys in high school definitely said worse, so I just laughed."

4. Patty

"My mom’s name is Patricia and she has always been called Patty. When she was young, her and her family (including 3 older siblings) traveled to French Canada. A woman raved about how beautiful her name was 'Oh Potty, what a beautiful name!' My mom is now 64 and still gets called Potty every now and then."



5. Kevin

"I have a friend named Kevin. He and I went to lunch in a food court near work once, and they asked his name. When he told her, the lady taking his order responded 'that's a beautiful name!' His reaction was '..thanks?' and we kinda laughed it off. I mean, it's a common enough name, and it's not exactly what I'd consider 'beautiful.' Then we got his food and she had written his name as 'Heaven.'"

6. Daisy

"A nurse asked what our baby’s name was at her first doctor's appointment, and we said, Daisy. English is her second language and maybe she wasn’t expecting this name, but she looked a little shocked and asked us how to spell it. Soon, we realized she thought we said Jaisy... or maybe Jay-Z? I give her credit for not looking more horrified that we named our daughter Jay-Z."

7. Another great dog story

"I have a dog one: We are fostering a boy named Ranger...my 92-year-old grandma thinks his name is Reindeer."



8. Felicity

"Not an accent thing, but more like a pronunciation/not listening thing: but my daughter’s name is Felicity (pronounced exactly as Felicity is pronounced lol) and I have had people give me weird weird looks and go 'Velocity?' 'Facility?' 'Fallacy?' Here I thought I picked a totally normal, easy to say and spell name.... and now my daughter is stuck being called Velocity lol."

9. Fox

"My firstborn child turned 2 just two weeks before her little brother was born, so her enunciation wasn’t that great yet. We named the baby Fox. For a solid 6 months it sounded like my daughter was calling my son F!ck. 'Oh, f!ck! You’re awake!' 'I love baby f!ck!' Yep."

10. Rebecca

"I used to work for a hearing aid center, so I mostly spoke to old and hard-of-hearing people. I was always careful with the volume, speed, and pitch of my voice. We had this one sweet old lady client. I would call and say 'Hi, this is Rebecca from <company> calling to confirm your appointment.' She’d reply “Oh, hi, Beatrice! I’ll be there!” I never bothered to correct her, mostly because it was cute and didn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Until one day, my coworker asked why she kept calling me Beatrice. The poor woman was embarrassed and didn’t know how she’d gotten my name so wrong! She’d never even known a Beatrice!"

11. Naughty Maureen

"I have a super nasal voice. At Starbucks, when I’ve said my name is Maureen, I’ve heard 'Morning,' 'Maury,' but once.... the dude had me repeat like 12 times and seemed to struggle writing it. He had written 'Horny.'"



12. Oh no, Annie

"It sounds contrived, but I swear this is exactly how it went down. My sixth-grade math teacher had a habit of calling students by the first letter of their name, followed by the first syllable of their last name. For instance, Kaiden Jackson would be K Jack, or Bailey Wellington would be B Well. No idea why he did it, but that was the nickname he'd use every once in a while to refer to any one of us. I've changed her name slightly, but it still works. He used this nickname technique on Annie Holsgrove. Yeah. He called an 11-year-old a-hole."

13. Jamorphus

"My husband and I have been around so many unique and uncommon names that nothing really phases us. So we never even thought about it when he had an appointment with 'Jamorphus.' They talked on the phone a few times, and he always asked for Jamorphus, and then eventually, they met, and he gave me the paperwork after, and I saw it was 'Joseph (Joe) Morfis' (not real spelling or anything). But we still laugh about it, and it's been like 10 years."

14. Clark

"My sweet brother Clark had a minor speech impediment as a kid. It resulted in lots of people thinking his name was 'Clock.' He still enunciates his name extremely carefully to make sure people don’t think he’s named after a timepiece."



15. Kyana

"Hi, I'm Kyana. Literally everyone: nice to meet you, Rihanna And this is why I hate Rihanna. I also get kenya a lot( really don't understand that one). Absolute favorite. Old lady at work can never remember my name and will literally call me anything with a k. One time she needed me and I let her loudly yell for Kahlua 4 times across the room before I asked her who she was trying to talk to."

16. Dennis on tap

"My ex-boyfriend ordered a pizza over the phone. When we got to the place to pick up the pizza, there was much confusion over our order. Finally, we got our food. The name they put on the box was 'Guiness.' My boyfriend's name is Dennis."

17. Tobi

"Freshman year of college I was going by Tobi, a name I no longer use. Ordered lunch at the on-campus diner, and the dude taking orders misheard and wrote 'Doobie' on the ticket. Yes, like that kind of Doobie.... The lady calling orders wouldn't even say it. I watched her look at the ticket, sigh very deeply, and call the order number instead. Walked up laughing and the first thing she said was, 'You're name's not Doobie, right? Please tell me it's not f*cking Doobie.' She was very relieved to learn that it wasn't."

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Wife says husband's last name is so awful she can't give it to her kids. Is she right?

"I totally get we can’t shield kids from everything, and I understand the whole family ties thing, but c’mon."

via Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels

A wife pleads with her husband to change their child's name.

Today, schools are much more concerned with protecting children from bullying than in the past but parents still have to be aware that kids will be kids, and having a child with a funny name is bound to cause them trouble.

A mother is concerned about her future children having her husband's unfortunate last name of “Butt,” so she turned to Reddit and asked the namenerds forum to help her convince him to let their future kids ditch the surname in favor of something less likely to be ridiculed.

"My husband’s last name is Butt. Can someone please help me illuminate to him why this last name is less than ideal,” she asked the forum. “I totally get we can’t shield kids from everything and I understand the whole family ties thing, but c'mon. Am I being unreasonable by suggesting our future kid either take my name, a hybrid, or a new one altogether?"

The posters on the forum overwhelmingly supported her.

"I can see hubby being a bit of a stickler because he wants to keep the family name, but I find it a bit baffling that he doesn’t get why it would be a concern,” user Babelight wrote. “If you have to club him over the head with it, indicate that for children/young persons hearing the name, they would equate it to someone’s last name being ‘Pooh,’ ‘Vaginah’ or ‘Peenis/Peniss.’”

Other posters noted that her opinion is just as valid as her husband’s when naming their child.

"You are absolutely not being unreasonable. Your husband's last name is objectively pretty awful, and of course, you don't want your child to have it. Also, even if it wasn't that bad, you would be still entitled to at least suggest that your child takes your last name since you are also going to be their parent,” SwordfishBrilliant40 wrote. “Also, he needs to think about his child, let's be honest, their life is going to be a lot easier with a ‘normal’/not bad’ last name."

Having a last name like Butt opens a child up to being bullied, which can lead to feelings of rejection, exclusion, isolation, diminished self-esteem and long-term mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety.

"I knew a kid named Zack Butt. Teased relentlessly. At every age," Kwam26 confirmed.

boy wearing blue button-up denim jacket sitting beside green fence

Bullying can cause lifelong damage.

Photo by Norbert Kundrak on Unsplash

There is also the practical problem of living in a digital world where algorithms often filter out names deemed offensive. This issue is known as the “Scunthorpe problem.” Back in the late ‘90s, people from the town of Scunthorpe in the UK couldn’t sign up on AOL because a filter blocked out the name due to the offensive term that sits in the middle of it.

The husband is proud of his family heritage and, possibly, of having learned to live with a name that would make most people chuckle. But it’s also understandable that his wife has a real problem bringing a child up in this world with a name that will make them the butt of jokes throughout their lives. With bullying objectively worse now than it was in the not-too-distant past thanks to social media, it makes sense for the mother to be as concerned as she is. Letting harsh words roll off one's back was easier without the Internet.

One wonders why this wasn’t discussed before the couple got married.


This article originally appeared two years ago.

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Woman with an unfortunate name is a warning for parents to consider before naming their kids

Evidently, this is a big problem.

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The things we don't even know we need to think about!

The recent trend of parents going out of their way to give their children unique names has brought up a lot of discussion on social media. Some of these names sound cute when a child is 5 years old. But will Caeleigh, Zoomer or Rhyedyr look like a serious adult on a job application in a few years?

A recent viral video on TikTok is a unique twist on the current discussion surrounding names. Samantha Hart has a name that doesn’t seem like it would draw any negative attention in professional circles. However, her parents didn’t consider email conventions when they named her back in the late ‘90s when email was new.

“My name is Samantha Hart,” the 27-year-old said. “Most companies use the email designation of first initial, last name, meaning my email would be 'shart.'” For the uninitiated, a "shart" is an unintentional release when one thinks they only have gas. Yikes.

The issue arose because Samantha has had two “professional” jobs in the past in which her name has been an issue. So, as she began a third job, she wondered how to approach the situation with a new employer.

@thesam_show

sorry if i talk about this problem too much but it is HAPPENING AGAIN!!

“At every single workplace, I have received an email from HR the week before I start letting me know that my name does not exactly fit the company email structure as they would intend and [asked] would I mind if they gave me a different structure for my email,” Hart said.

So she asked her 30,000 followers on TikTok if she should just "reach out, right off the bat" to her employer and ask for "something else" or wait for HR to react to her email situation. But most of the responses were from people who have been in the same embarrassing situation as Samantha and wished their parents had thought twice before naming them.

"Clittmann has entered the chat. Have been dealing with this since college," Chris.Littmann responded.

"As Swallo, I feel your pain," Samantha Wallo replied.

"My name is Sue Hartlove so my work emails are always shartlove," Sue added.

a man looking shockedOh No Mood GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy

"I went to college w Tiffany Estes," Abby1233213 wrote.

"Rkelley has entered the chat," Rach commented.

"Worked with a guy named Sam Adcock," Lori added.

"My last name is Hartstein, and my mom’s personal email is ‘shartstein.’ People literally call her shart-stein," Lyss wrote.

"I used to work with a BAllsman," JenniferKerastas added.

"I worked with a Patrick Ecker at a previous job..." NoName wrote.

"Our high school used last name, first two letters of first name. My friend's email ended up being 'mountme,'" Averageldeal commented.

Andy Marks won the comment section with: "Always best to initiate the shart convo… wait too long and it tends to come out at the least opportune moment."

While the comments were dominated by people sharing their unfortunate email addresses, a few people in the IT field shared their advice for how Samantha should approach her new employer with her email issue. Most agreed that she should address the issue before it becomes a larger problem.

"As someone in IT—please reach out. When we have to rename a bunch of logins after someone starts it can cause headaches for everyone (inc you!)," Kelsey Lane wrote.

Expecting parents, please take notes.


This article originally appeared last year.

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