Plain Weird30 Jul 2008 11:41 am
By Kelvin

I think the thing that troubles the anti-multiculturalists so much is that when anyone of any race could be doing any job, how are you supposed to apply the rigid conformist class structure which they rely on to tell them whether to sneer or tug their forelock? If only they knew the class system isn’t dead, it’s just expressed in unfamiliar ways. Real Aquascutum vs fake Burberry, for instance. Or “creative” naming of your crotchspawn.

HYS, naturally, has a few comedy giants just itching for the chance to fuck up their offsprings’ lives.

We have three children two girls named Storm and Skye and a boy named Blade … if we have another boy, his name will be Raven, River or Rayne.

TJ, Hampshire, UK

Oooh, you should totally have another girl and call her Nyghtebloode. Or Scrythe. Or Deathhhe. They’ll make fantastic little goth bridesmaids when you finally get around to having your mediæval-themed wedding. Þuckwit.

I fell into this trap completely by accident with my son Connor. It was only when his first piece of post arrived that we realised he was C. Shaw.

Phil Shaw, Portsmouth

Haha yeah, the shit he must get in the schoolyard for that. C. Shaw! God, I’m dying here. Hyperventilating. It’s like you called your kid see-saw, if you only use his first initial and ignore that the stresses and sounds of the second word are completely different. What a gaffe!

I changed my name by deed poll to Jenna Dana Bananarama Rater. I’m now the Jenna Rater!

Jenna Dana Bananarama Rater, Cardiff, Wales

I bet you follow up introducing yourself by shaking hands, only you’ve got a hand buzzer in there! Or maybe a fake hand! Or googly eyeball glasses! Must be a laugh a minute sharing an office with you!!

I have had my future kids names picked out for the last 5 years: Spoon Marie, Toaster Thadious, and Grayson Basin Mason…maybe I should have 4 now that Tullulah Does The Hula From Hawaii has become free!

Cassie, Cardiff

Notwithstanding that you can’t even spell Thaddeus properly before inflicting it on some poor kid, I think you need to learn that the names that seem so cute on your bed-smothering collection of dead-eyed stuffed toys will not be so appropriate on actual living beings. Not that you’re likely to get impregnated on there. Any root action is going to result in a fatal landslip of Forever Friends. It’ll take days to dig your unfortunate paramour’s funfur-choked body from the ruins.

85 Responses to “I’m bonkers, me!”

  1. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:44 am James not from Sussex

    That Jenna Dana Bananarama Rater, you check her bins, I bet you’ll find nothing but a ton dead batteries from her Big Mouth Billy Bass. What a scream!

  2. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:44 am James not from Sussex

    A ton of dead batteries, that is. I’m so zany I forgot to include the word!!?!

  3. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:47 am Rebel

    I remember talking to someone who had a daughter called Portia and I laughed saying “remember in A Fish Called Wanda” they were taking the piss because someone asked why she was named after a car ?”

    Cue puzzled expression and “why’s that funny - we met when Derek was driving a Porche and we always said we’d name our child after it”.

    How does one say “dozy fucking hound” in polite society ???

  4. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:49 am bingowings

    “How does one say “dozy fucking hound” in polite society ???”

    That’s the mistake you’re making - you don’t ’say’ it. You pin them down and write it on their forehead with a permanent marker.

  5. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:49 am mr crazy fun guy

    In the Beckham-inspired tradition of naming kids after where they were conceived, my partner and I plan to name our child ‘Barry Island Log Flume’.

  6. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:51 am Rich (MMath)(Oxon)

    I’m considering changing my name by deed poll. Those qualifications look so pretentious.

    Maybe I’ll change it to “Jenna Dana Bananarama Rater, Cardiff, Wales is a big stupid doo-doo head”. And then go to cardiff and marry her- just to see what her name becomes.

    What a riot.

  7. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:54 am Stuart

    I’ve allways wanted to meet a Richard Cranium. But then again, I am FUCKING zany!!??!?

  8. on 30 Jul 2008 at 11:55 am Mal

    Presumably C. Shaw = sea shore. And the kids aren’t laughing at him because of his name, it’s because he’s got a fucktard for a father.

    At least my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Adjusted, didn’t saddle me with a comedy name.

    What?

  9. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:02 pm DC

    Whilst in the US I had the joy of spending a New Year with a family consisting of children named bizarre things like Storme, and Colt. Coming home, I thought I’d left it all behind me…then at work another Storme turned up, and subsequently a Jaguar. Sooner or later other peoples fuckwittery comes back to haunt me.

  10. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:02 pm Arc Welder

    I am glad that my parents did not call me Mig Welder or Tig Welder, that would have been daft.

  11. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:08 pm Rebel

    Oh forgot to mention, said child’s name was spelled PORSHA.

    So thick on both options!!!

    I do have a relative who wanted to call her son Adam “cos it was dead modern”.

    Though no one can ever top the plank I had the misfortune to travel behind on the train once who regaled the carriage with how her daughter got her name.

    “Well, it was gonna be Sasha Marie Jade cos that’s dead classy but Jed wants to call her Princess cos he fancies Jordan and that’s what her kid’s called and so I said call her Jordan but then he said it was lad’s name. So we were gonna call her after us both and she was gonna be either TrayJed or JedTray. It might not even be his kid like but his mate’s name is Matty and that goes with nothing”.

  12. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:08 pm Helen

    These are the people who buy and wear novelty t-shirts to make up for their lack of personality.

  13. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:13 pm Oliver

    Try growing up in the 70’s being called Oliver.

    Of course, you can’t get round Waitrose these days without some yummy mummy calling their offspring by my name but it was a nightmare back then. I wanted to murder my folks just for that up until I was about 14.

    Had I known how bonkers the whole naming thing was going to get I would have been alot more relaxed about it.

    Anyway, thanks for listening. It helps to talk…

  14. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:14 pm bill withers

    C. Shaw = Sea shore.

  15. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:16 pm Rich (MMath)(Oxon)

    The Jordan/Peter Andre kid is incredible. Quite how they managed to put Thea and Amy together to get “Princess Tiaamii” is fairly steptacular.

    But it’s the quote from Jordan that makes it for me:

    We’ve put an accent over the first A to make it more exotic and two Is at the end just to make it look a bit different.

  16. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:22 pm Els

    I find it quite frightening how many of these people come from Cardiff. Why they bother using the main HYS when BBC Wales helpfully provides them with their own wittering hole for pointless regionalised banter is a mystery. Anyone who really wants to lose the will to live could start by reading what they have to say here here. Thrill at the wit of ‘Dai Vergence’ and gasp at how these twatflaps manage to shoehorn their random bigotry into complex discussion on the ducks and squirrels up Roath Park. Still, at least they’re proper Welsh and therefore hate the English even more than the ethnics, immigrants and gays.

  17. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:23 pm Scaryduck

    TRUFAX: I used to work at the dole office in Reading, where there were no less than five James Bonds, all deep undercover.

  18. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:28 pm Hugh "773 (metric)" Jarse

    I’m now the Jenna Rater!

    Because you’re dirty, smelly, and emit a constant annoying drone?

    If you’re serious about the name change, I expect everyone that knows you hates you. If you’re the kind of person that would joke about having that kind of name without actually having it, then I expect everyone that knows you hates you.

  19. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:34 pm Havok

    No-one ever considered that the child might like the quirkiness of their name. Nothing has ever held back my development or progress in the world. I’m now working in the catering trade and everyone calls me Eggy. I don’t see the problem!
    Egnorwiddle Waldstrom , London, UK

    Now, where’s a convenient clock tower to set up this rifle on?

  20. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:42 pm T-Cup

    Does anybody else think that perhaps Nick could be the person reponsible for writing the cryptic clue things on 3-2-1 (with Ted Rogers)

  21. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:43 pm T-Cup

    In the previous post, that is. Tabbing around the submit form really stitched me up a treat there…

  22. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:44 pm Chris "773 (metric)" Pipancakes

    if we have another boy, his name will be Raven, River or Rayne

    What’s crueller than calling your kid Raven? What’s crueller than calling your kid River? What’s even crueller than calling your kid Rayne? Calling your kid all three, with a conjunction.

    - What’s your name, little boy?
    - Raven, River or Rayne
    - Well, which one is it?
    - Raven, River or Rayne
    - Come on, you little tease, tell me!

  23. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:46 pm Briantist

    James not from Sussex: a “ton”? What kind of way to talk is that. We are in the EU and we are forced by faceless bureaucrats to use the metric “tonne”.

  24. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:53 pm Joe

    I am being pedantic as all fuck here, but “Þ” is pronounced “th”. You’d want a fehu (which I can’t find in my character set, oddly).

  25. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:59 pm Dalek13

    Have you noticed just how many Wayne Kerrs there are on HYS?

  26. on 30 Jul 2008 at 12:59 pm Joe

    Also, meet Kyzler, Jayen and Harlem:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/simon-crubellier/2357358501/

  27. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:08 pm offensive_mango

    Three words:
    Utah Baby Namer

    Five more words (one of them repeated):
    Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing

  28. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:16 pm Enzyme

    I was going to say what Joe said. So I’ll just record my having noticed how many people seem to have commas between the components of…

    … oh, I’m even boring myself now.

  29. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:18 pm Kelvin

    Also, meet Kyzler

    Parents couldn’t decide whether their favourite film was The Usual Suspects or Fight Club, I see.

  30. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:20 pm Rebel

    You missed out big “bro” Colby.

    God sex must be easy if these half wits can do it enough times to breed.

  31. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:21 pm lisa simpson

    i read those comments a few days ago and i got the impression the last one (about borrowing talulah does the hula) was a piss-take… i got this impression from all the !s that were used - it just read like someone was being sarcastic.

    if that’s the case, surely less need for the vitriol in that particular case?

    naturally i might be wrong/too easily fooled ;)

  32. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:23 pm Nikki

    I once saw one of those ‘happy first birthday’ things in the Salford Advertiser for a kid called… *drum roll* …LUCIFER. What kind of badger’s flange calls their kid that?

  33. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:23 pm Kelvin

    if that’s the case, surely less need for the vitriol in that particular case?

    In that case the L. A. Odicean rule applies, namely that if your spoof of a fuckwit is indistinguishable from genuine fuckwittery, you’re still a fuckwit.

  34. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:45 pm Mike Hunt

    Can’t see the problem myself. I Would quite like to have an exotic name.

  35. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:50 pm Simon

    To add to the tales of future misery, merciless bullying at school and subsequent years of therapy I give you this…

    When a relative of mine had just given birth to her first daughter she was compelled to share a recovery ward with two very young chavettes; both of whom had given birth to sons.

    One morning one girl asked, “what that picture on the wall in the bogs… was all about,” referring to a poster for an anti-domestic violence project. Her friend relied that she didn’t know because it “was all in foreign”.

    Later in the day, after investigaing the toilets, the first young woman asked a nurse what the “poniks picture” was all about and if it was anything to do with “the Polish”. The nurse told them it was a poster for a refuge for battered women and that it was run by the Phoenix Project. The poster was in English, not Polish, but was next to versions in Hindi and Urdu.

    The word Phoenix was rolled around the ward a few times with both chavettes deciding that it “sounded dead classy”. So, that afternoon, little Leroy and little Dean were both renamed Feonix - and years after their mothers will be able to recount the tale with pride..

    Son, you were named after a poster in the bogs of an NHS maternity ward.

  36. on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:51 pm Simon (not from Scotland)

    Frank Zappa had the last word on giving your children odd names, viz Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. He assumed it was their last name that would cause the piss taking.

  37. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:00 pm Throbbe

    Simon,

    I have a similar maternity story following the recent birth of Throbbe Jr*. the conversation at the next bed went thusly …

    Midwife: Any names?

    Mum: Well, my son Ben wants him to be named after Captain Jack Sparrow.

    Midwife: Oooh, Jack, that’s a really popular name.

    Mum: Actually, we were thinking Captain.

    *embarassed silence*

    * not actual name.

  38. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:05 pm Rebel

    Simon et al,

    I just wonder how many chavettes wanted to call their darling daughters “Chlamydia” for the very same reason and were “politely” asked not to by midwives ?

  39. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:08 pm Satan Mephistopheles-DeVille

    “What kind of badger’s flange calls their kid that?”

    Ahem.

  40. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:12 pm skunkpussy

    Monkey Dust did an excellent sketch on this very subject. Link-me-do.

  41. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:18 pm alanthehat

    I so agree with the above comments. Common people are so laughable, with the tawdry names they come up with for their horrid offspring. Haw haw haw!

  42. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:30 pm Rotwatcher

    I so agree with the above comments. Common people are so laughable, with the tawdry names they come up with for their horrid offspring. Haw haw haw!

    It’s not common people, it’s stupid people. Otherwise known as HYSers.

  43. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:34 pm Philbert

    Legend has it that deep in the wastelands of Fife (where I grew up), there roams a child whose fuckwit parents were big Disney fans, and who ended up with the name Pocohontas McGlinchey.

    This may be an urban myth. Well, semi-rural actually.

  44. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:37 pm alathehat

    ‘It’s not common people, it’s stupid people. Otherwise known as HYSers.’

    Fair enough criticism. I do like sneery things, which is why I like this site so much, so I shouldn’t be complaining.

  45. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:37 pm Kelvin

    I so agree with the above comments. Common people are so laughable, with the tawdry names they come up with for their horrid offspring. Haw haw haw!

    Actually my point about the “new class structure” is that you generally self-select your class by action and cultural signifiers. You can “choose” whether to be Kappa-class or spend the same money on jeans and a t-shirt in much the same way as you can identify as someone who treats their child as a person rather than a fashion accessory/talking point/way of sharing some commonality, no matter how fleeting, with someone whose friendship and approval you covet even though the closest you’ll ever get to them is rubbing your face in Heat magazine. And note that all of the above is strictly separated from earnings, in the sense that within any earnings bracket there is a practically infinite choice of cultural identifiers - and in the sense that naming a child costs nothing, and entirely to do with taste.

    So if your argument is therefore “People with atrocious taste are laughable” then yes, I suppose you’re right.

  46. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:40 pm Simon

    On the showbiz front I give you Apple Martin. (Like Chris Martin needs to give the world another reason to squarely smack him in his doughy, whining face.)

    @ alanthehat

    Well dear boy - one would go on about the poshos trying to outdo the oiks on the bizarre naming front, but I’ve no idea how they came by their nomenclatures. Besides, they have sufficent money to sue the arse off the top of my legs should they take umbrage at me taking the piss online. Nor do they tend to hang around NHS maternity wards when they finally farrow, or calf, or however the hell the monied classes reproduce.

    However, I did once work with an incredibly well-to-do young man from “money” whose first two names were Tercel Xerses, he had another four middle names that got progressively worse as they got closer to his surname but I’m not prepared to even attempt to spell them.

  47. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:46 pm Rebel

    It’s not so much the stpid names we should mock - although fuck knows they are hilarious often.

    It’s the brain dead lack of imagination plebs that do me in.

    My nephew goes to a school where there are 33 kids in the class.

    17 girls - 10 Chloes, 6 Jessicas and a “Diana Hope” - she’s 10, say no more.

    16 lads - 11 Joshuas and 5 Jacks.

    FFS anything would be better than that!!

  48. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:47 pm Em

    Thanks Kelvin - if my sociology ‘tutor’ had explained that as clearly as you just did, I think I’d've had higher marks last month.

  49. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:50 pm Em

    10 Chloes, 6 Jessicas and a “Diana Hope”

    …and I thought the three Jada’s in my son’s year group of 56 or so showed a lack of imagination. Thank goodness for a multicultural school population :-D

  50. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:51 pm Andrew

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the ultimate bad name site: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/

    You’re welcome.

  51. on 30 Jul 2008 at 2:51 pm Em

    ::must proofread before clicking ’submit’::

  52. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:09 pm a.m

    I’m naming my kids Tony bLIAR and Gordon Brown(sympathiser). See how you like that!

    This’ll go down a treat at the pub methinks, the lads’ll be in stitches.

    p.s. bet this doesn’t get posted

  53. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:11 pm Rotwatcher

    Andrew - what a great link. Hours of amusement while I wait for the next installment of sYb.

    Best wishes

    Tarkwin

  54. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:25 pm Kelvin

    On the showbiz front I give you Apple Martin.

    I hear the lead singer of Snow Patrol plans to call his firstborn Microsoft Windows Lightbody.

  55. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:35 pm Lell

    Imagine my play time at school.
    The sound of “Lesley-Anne the Les-b-an” ringing in my ears.
    I hated my mum for a good ten years

  56. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:41 pm BottleBrain

    “I so agree with the above comments. Common people are so laughable, with the tawdry names they come up with for their horrid offspring. Haw haw haw!”

    Yes, yes, I agree entirely. Children ought to be given respectable names like Wilbur or Alfred, lest they be doomed to the same abominable standards as their wretched makers! *scoff*

  57. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:43 pm Death

    Best one I ever heard was a pair of totally ignorant prats who had a daughter called Adele… although for some reason they pronounced it Adeel.

    Unfortunately for the girl the family name was Doe.

    Even more unfortunately, this is a true story.

  58. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:50 pm Simon

    I hear the lead singer of Snow Patrol plans to call his firstborn Microsoft Windows Lightbody.

    Vista Lightbody surely? Although I did see this pronouncement by Mr Martin, with my own English eyes mind you, giving us the benefit of his vast intellectual consideration on the subject of baby’s names…

    “People make a big fuss over names. Names of babies, names of albums, names of bands. There’s nothing weird about calling your baby Chewbacca if that’s what you want to call your baby. It’s no stranger than Sarah. A name is just a noise, and if you like it, then f–k what everyone else says.”

    http://uk.eonline.com/uberblog/b145631_chris_martins_not_gonna_justify_funny.html

    Roughly translated into the Queen’s good own, this means…

    I’m a massively pretentious, self-regarding knob-end. Seriously, I’m going for the crown here. I might only be a floppy, overused haddock’s cha cha now - but give me five years and I’ll be a bigger scrofulous Baboon’s pissflap than that there Bono.

  59. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:53 pm Oliver

    @Lell. Those kids would be laughing on the other side of their faces if you did indeed turn out to be gay.

    Which for all I know, you might have done.

    I imagine though that any lesbians who genuinely are called Lesley, probably change their names just to avoid the smirks from adults let alone any left over trauma from playground taunts.

    I’m nearly fucking 40 and people still think its amusing to make ‘Oliver’ cracks when they meet me. Mind you, my friends are pretty purile at times.

  60. on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:58 pm Joe

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the ultimate bad name site: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/

    Although I’m going to act devil’s advocate here and point out that their definition of ‘bad’ seems to include a large side order of ‘not English’. There are plenty of perfectly respectable Irish or Welsh names in there, along with madcap wack-a-loon stuff like ‘Mercedes’ and ‘Rowan’.

  61. on 30 Jul 2008 at 4:00 pm Lucie

    I know someone with 4 girls called Crystal, Sapphire, Jade, and Amber. I always wondered if she would have called a boy ‘Flint’

  62. on 30 Jul 2008 at 4:28 pm Mooska

    Nothing has ever held back my development or progress in the world. I’m now working in the catering trade

    You gotta live the dream. I did, until I got sacked from Burger King.

  63. on 30 Jul 2008 at 4:42 pm Kelvin

    Although I’m going to act devil’s advocate here and point out that their definition of ‘bad’ seems to include a large side order of ‘not English’. There are plenty of perfectly respectable Irish or Welsh names in there, along with madcap wack-a-loon stuff like ‘Mercedes’ and ‘Rowan’.

    She does actually answer this allegation in her FAQ:

    I’ve left in ethnic names where 1) the parent-to-be was clearly, clearly not of that ethnic group (The folks aiming for Italian names and include Keanu; “We especially like Japanese names,” 2) someone took a common name, word, or concept and made a big deal about its “ethnic-ness,” or, alternatively, seemed to not know it has an ethnic connection at all (see: Ireland), or when someone encouraged others to appropriate other cultures via steps 1 and 2.

  64. on 30 Jul 2008 at 5:03 pm Red

    Even more annoying than those kids who have stupid names inflicted on them by idiot parents are those who change their names voluntarily to something catastrophically retarded. I have the dubious fortune to work in an area where we deal a lot with the , shall we say, mentally challenged, and we have loads of blokes (always blokes!)calling themselves Jesus Christ, John T Baptist, Elvis, Santa etc
    Do they seriously expect us to believe they are the real J C etc

  65. on 30 Jul 2008 at 5:05 pm steveb

    I just spent an hour on that rotten baby name website.

    Damn you!

  66. on 30 Jul 2008 at 5:17 pm Oliver

    @ Red. Do you work in America by any chance?

    i have spent waaaay too much time here today.

  67. on 30 Jul 2008 at 5:18 pm Andrew

    steveb - As long as no one actually wet or soiled themselves laughing (which is a distinct possibility) then I reckon I’m still ahead.

  68. on 30 Jul 2008 at 5:23 pm Kelvin

    i have spent waaaay too much time here today.

    Careful, if Bill Sykes hears you say that he’ll have your guts for garters!

  69. on 30 Jul 2008 at 10:49 pm Rich

    Me and my missus were first introduced to each other by a bloke called Dick Tingle.

  70. on 30 Jul 2008 at 10:57 pm Steve

    “I think there is a big diffrence between them and rounding up fleeing civilians and shoting them.”

    Yeah wih one lot of murdering cunts you can see their faces. With the other they fly above you at night and burn you and your entire town.

  71. on 30 Jul 2008 at 10:58 pm Steve

    cock. that was totally the wrong thread. we’ll im not doing it again!

  72. on 31 Jul 2008 at 4:43 am Mr Clovis

    Kelvin,
    I wouldn’t say that the choice of names was entirely free of earnings, or a simple matter of taste.

    What may be good taste within one social or economic group, may appear to another as vulgar.
    ‘Precious’ is (or was), a popular choice with lower income African-Americans, but not with white Americans of any income group. When Afro-Americans began chosing names popular with ‘old money’, the latter stopped using them.

  73. on 31 Jul 2008 at 9:13 am alt-f4

    There should be a law that English babies should be given English names, but I supposes the EU national socialists have banned that. We are a SECULAR Christian country and shouldn’t allowed names from alien (MID EAST) “religons” to be given to white babies. If Princess Di was still alive she’d be spinning in her grave!!!

  74. on 31 Jul 2008 at 9:14 am Kelvin

    I’m not saying that class and earnings are completely divorced, that would be patently ludicrous (although when you hear, for instance, a BMW 6-series being described as a “drug dealer’s car” it doesn’t seem quite s ludicrous). What I am saying is that within any band of earnings, you can express your social affiliations as and how you see fit. I may not be able to afford the £3,000 lampshade that the Grauniad says is to die for, but you can see from the fact that I don’t wear Hilfiger or call my child Dwaynze, and the recycling bin outside my house being full of Able & Cole boxes that I probably am “Guardian Class” for want of a better term.

    However, I also wouldn’t argue that the names that seem appropriate for your child are not indelibly linked to your social affiliation. If yhou’re upwardly mobile you’re going to choose a name from the affiliation you aspire to - typically for the middle class this is going to be a posh-sounding name. If you’re the kind of person who wishes they had the mental acuity to be a Big Brother housemate, you’re going to take your lead from Heat Magazine. But society is not leading you by the hand down to the newsagents and forcing Heat magazine into your sweaty, overweight, fag stained mitt. It’s a choice to aspire to being posh or being like Jordan.

    The point being that ultimately, it’s perfectly fine to laugh at these idiots because no-one is holding their arms behind their backs forcing them to name their kids after a Wesley Snipes movie.

  75. on 31 Jul 2008 at 9:49 am Symone

    no-one is holding their arms behind their backs forcing them to name their kids after a Wesley Snipes movie

    Don’t be deliberately obtuse. Nobody in their right mind would name their child after a Wesley Snipes movie.

    My youngest son, BadBoyzII, agrees.

    Now, if you’d said a Steven Seagal movie then I’d have backed you to the hilt. After all, Stevie baby is an ideal role model what with being:

    a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome and usually impeccably dressed action star

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000219/bio

    Wesley Snipes movies stuck donkey’s balls in hell. Innit.

  76. on 31 Jul 2008 at 11:03 am steveb

    I was inspired by the lovely Celtic heirloom names to create this name (for girl)¨

    Phaerie Llychwydd

    You couldn’t make it up!!!1eleven!!

  77. on 31 Jul 2008 at 12:29 pm Charles Exford, Oxton

    I think Half Man Half Biscuit said it best:

    “A woman who described herself as “A little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally, a little bit Sex In The City” and chose to call her baby boy Fred as a childishly rebellious attempt at a clever reaction to those who might have expected her to call him Julian or Rupert. Bit of advice: call him Rupert, it fits, and besides it’s a good name. Don’t be calling him Fred or Archie, with all its cheeky but lovable working class scamp connotations, unless you really do have plans for him to spend his life in William Hill’s waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbott”

  78. on 31 Jul 2008 at 1:03 pm Very Tenables

    Charles,

    Oddly enough, that was on the wireless the night before last. Still funny though.

    The Mercedes car was named after a nobleman’s daughter and became an item to aspire to owning. Yet, the name itself went vertiginously downmarket a few years ago.

    If I was to launch the Jazzmyn 1600 GTi, do you think something similar would happen in reverse?

  79. on 31 Jul 2008 at 1:41 pm Rebel

    Stand back we have a winner!

    Just heard outside a supermarket an hour ago, the chavviest Cockney accent going:

    “OI’VE TOLD YA GET HERE”

    “ANASTASIA BEAN I WON’T TELL YOU AGAIN”

  80. on 31 Jul 2008 at 2:14 pm bigruss

    how about those twats that call their kid ‘charlie/y’, because they think its cool to spend their spare time snorting a £50 combination of croatin and glucose and then naming their kid after it.

    i’ll do one better and call my nipper ‘crack’

  81. on 31 Jul 2008 at 6:58 pm Ophelia Dangleberry

    How about “Bob”? Sounds like a 1970’s hairstyle.

  82. on 31 Jul 2008 at 8:05 pm Lucy

    The name C. Shaw sounds like ’sea shore’ of course, not ’see saw’. Other than that, keep up the good work, do.

  83. on 01 Aug 2008 at 12:35 am Denzil

    I did have a newspaper cutting I’d been keeping for such an occasion but of course I’ve lost it now. It was in the notifications section of my local paper celebrating the birth of Jasperina Kneebone Badcrumble, a sister for Rupert Obadiah.

    Just found it again in a forum after a search of the internets. Magic.

  84. on 19 Aug 2008 at 9:33 am Gordon

    I read in the local paper there was a baby girl called JAZZNIQUE.

    I’m not sure if it’s pronounced Jazzneek or Jazzneekay, as I’m assuming the parent’s wouldn’t know what to do with an accent.

  85. on 23 Aug 2008 at 12:06 pm Steve

    [quote]“as I’m assuming the parent’s wouldn’t know what to do with an accent”[/quote]

    Or, presumably, an apostrophe…

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