Poll of the Day > Coworker had a baby girl yesterday. They picked a weird name

(+) Yeah! (+)

Figura
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figura

noun
(in literary theory) a person or thing representing or symbolizing a fact or ideal.

Yeah, that's a weird name.
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Go figure! a.

No way that kid will be teased in school. OTOH, kid will probably end up going by a nickname or middle name, like my friend Nicole (Dierdre) and my granddaughter Gracie (Elizabeth).
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Well at least it wasn't Figaro.
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dancer62 posted...

No way that kid will be teased in school.

I used to think that way, but then so many people gave their kids stupid or weird names, it's hard to say there IS a baseline "normal" name these days, which means kids probably won't know a name like that is weird to make fun of it.

Sure, if you name your kid "12345" or something you're still an asshole and your kid is getting picked on, but a lot of the weirder names that would have got you picked on when I was a kid are more or less normalized now.

If anything, you're probably more likely to get picked on for having names that USED to be normal. Agnes, Gertrude, Bertha, etc. And even those might slide by if you use "hipper" nicknames.


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Is her last name Speech?
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I'm womdering if it will be alright to ask her how the little Fig is doing.

btw, I like the name Dierdre.
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Probably misspelled Firaga!
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

dancer62 posted...

No way that kid will be teased in school.

I used to think that way, but then so many people gave their kids stupid or weird names, it's hard to say there IS a baseline "normal" name these days, which means kids probably won't know a name like that is weird to make fun of it.

Sure, if you name your kid "12345" or something you're still an asshole and your kid is getting picked on, but a lot of the weirder names that would have got you picked on when I was a kid are more or less normalized now.

If anything, you're probably more likely to get picked on for having names that USED to be normal. Agnes, Gertrude, Bertha, etc. And even those might slide by if you use "hipper" nicknames.

While standards adjust over time, you can usually just look at a list of common names as a guideline. And there are a handful of Biblical names that never go out of style. James, John, Michael, William, etc, have been top 50 every year for as long as baby names have been tracked.

https://www.babycenter.com/top-baby-names-2018.htm

And, of course, some of the weird names today are previously common names far older than your examples. More importantly, though, some weird names are weirder than others and are therefore more likely to be a target for bullying.

faramir77 posted...

Is her last name Speech?

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wwinterj25 posted...

Figaro

You mean like the twins from FFVI, and the castle they live in.
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Zeus posted...

While standards adjust over time, you can usually just look at a list of common names as a guideline. And there are a handful of Biblical names that never go out of style. James, John, Michael, William, etc, have been top 50 every year for as long as baby names have been tracked.

Yes, but I think the overall pool has widened, in a sense.

In older times, you'd tend to have a much smaller cluster of names that would be used more commonly, so outliers tend to stand out more. If you know a half-dozen people named William but have only ever met one Ivan, the names that seem unique are going to seem more odd. But when the overall pool of names is much larger (due to cultural intermixing, media encouraging new names while deliberately looking for "unique" names for flavor, and general tolerance/a desire for individuality to shine), then you start to get so used to unique or odd names being a thing that none of them stand out as much as they would have in the old days. Especially when the Internet is a thing, and so many of those names are out there somewhere.

Some names will probably still get you picked on regardless (ask anyone named Martin what their nicknames were as a kid), but I honestly do think it's less of an issue these days than it was 30 years ago.

Sure, Bucephalus McGillicutty or Michael Hunt may still be doomed, and parents are still assholes if they name their kids rhyming names or after shitty video game characters (or, like, Thanos or something), but I think there are way more "acceptable" names available at this point than there were in the past, so it's harder for any specific name to become an immediate heat magnet the way they used to.


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Firewood18 posted...

btw, I like the name Dierdre.

Not sure if it's a cultural name or not, as it appears in Fire Emblem, a game that is known for some crazy naming conventions, but they have also used a good amount of traditional European names in the past.

Cherche
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Firewood18 posted...

'm womdering if it will be alright to ask her how the little Fig is doing.

I had a friend in high school who's last name translated to little fig. So I actually called her that all the time afterwards...
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