Around the time that I was having my children, it started to become very popular for parents to alter the traditional spelling of a name in order to strive for uniqueness. I blame it on the eighties. (I could in fact blame almost anything on the eighties and still be right.) (Really. Think about it.) Anyway, with bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and INXS (I have friends who still pronounce it 'inks' having failed to grasp the whole in excess thing…), it's no wonder people began to look for new ways to spell things. Mike, Jim and Sue just wouldn't cut it anymore. Now if you say Myke, Djimm and Sioux, you really got something!
Or, let's blame it on rock music in general. (Maybe John Lithgow had it right in Footloose. And- back to the eighties…) Prince made infamy in the early nineties (as if any of his other antics hadn't garnered him enough notoriety already) simply by changing his name to some unpronounceable symbol mish-mash of the male and female gender symbols with a swirly line running through it. So blame it on the eighties, blame it on rock music, or blame it on the rain. Or is that rayne? Reign? Raene?
Anyway, Brittany became Bryttani, and Amy became Aimee, etc. and so on. The basic rule of thumb was to swap any 'y' for an 'i' and vice versa. Further, anytime an additional vowel or vowels could be thrown into the mix- well do it!- that just makes things exciting! If your kid's name looks like a bowl of alphabet soup, you're doing it right!
This has caused quite a lot of confusion for us boring folks when we try to figure out someone's name by reading it. And a lot of unfair outrage from the parents and the child should the child's name be mispronounced. Really? If your child's name is Siobhan there's a pretty good chance NO one is going to pronounce it correctly. (Although in all fairness this is a traditional Irish spelling, it's still a tricky endeavor for many of us on this side of the ocean.)
Technically speaking, if you are trying to name your child with originality, you need not stick to unusual spellings and the conjoining of two names such as -Michael and Rene making Miche, or Renael. Try going old fashioned. How many Gertrudes do you deal with on a regular basis? Mildreds? Eugenias? Berthas? Just sayin', if you name your bouncing baby girl Gertrude Eugenia, it's a pretty fair assumption she'll be the only five year old in kindergarten with that name. Plus, with the initials G.E. she might turn out to be brilliant. Bringing good things to light…
Not that long ago, a woman named Eina filled out an application at the company I was working for and I was responsible for calling her references. The first was her mother. After the initial greeting, I explained the reason for my call, pronouncing the woman's name as I-na, and was immediately interrupted, "You should learn how to say someone's name before you call their references! Are you stupid?"
Huh. Really. Now being the pleasant, patient (ha!!) person I am, I naturally kept my temper and, assuming I was having difficulty reading the handwriting, I said, "I'm sorry, I have the spelling as E-i-n-a. Is that correct?"
"Yes," she said. "But it's pronounced Eena, as in Tina. It's not that hard to understand, unless you're stupid!"
Alrighty then. Well, let me just point this out to you Einstein (see what I did there?). Eina designates I-na. Eichmann, Calvin Klein, Eisenhower, Gloria Steinem and even the Eiffel Tower would all agree. Now, if you had wanted her name to be pronounced Eena, you might have considered spelling it Iena- ask Steven Spielberg. Because, the general rule of thumb is- when you have a vowel immediately preceded by another vowel, you pronounce the second in the hard form. Now the fine example you have given alters the rule because the 'i' in Tina is immediately preceded by a consonant. Not hard to understand, unless you are stupid.
Thus, I have come to the conclusion that along with Lamaze classes, people should be given baby naming classes and then pass a test in order to be allowed to name their own children. There are some relatively simple rules to follow. If your last name is Bush, you probably should not name your child Harry. I say this because I went to school with a boy who was saddled with this moniker and- true story- he was an extremely successful track runner, specifically in the long distance run. No kidding, who's shocked here? It's a talent the poor boy had years to hone. Similarly speaking, think twice if you intend to name your son Richard. There are a number of surnames that would lead to disaster. Pretty much, if your last name is also an action verb- ie: Bender, Holder, Barber, etc.- these are all BAD ideas.
Rhyming names are also bad. It is not cute to name your child Belle Snell, or Ruth Bluth, or for that matter, to saddle them with the same first name as their surname, as in, James James, or Michael Michaels. And never, EVER, is the name 'Vaginia' appropriate for your daughter. I have met one such girl. Her parents must have hated her.
In fact, it is exceptionally wise to take some names completely off the table. Poindexter is a prime example of table removal. Scrub that puppy off. Nope, it's not even up for debate. Move on. And though you might think your baby is Precious, it's not a particularly great name for anything that doesn't have a tail (which leads to a whole new set of problems).
My particular favorite is a story my daughter told me. At some point in school, she came across a girl named Le-a. Naturally, everyone thought her parents named her Leah and added the hyphen for whimsy. The girl had the audacity to become outraged. Because, it turns out, her name was- are you ready for this?- Ledasha. What?!! To become enraged because people failed to enunciate the punctuation in your name (which, by the way would make your name Lehyphena), is the epitome of ignorance. When did we start articulating punctuation? It would certainly extend conversations to the point that we comma as a whole comma would all get very tired of hearing each other speak exclamation point.
Before long children will be bearing names like @&*$%.
"No officer, I wasn't cursing at him, that's his name…"
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