Cutesified spellings of names - are you for or against?

[UdoKier]

Fist time I saw one was a neighbor girl, Jennifer, that moved to El Paso from LA when I was 13. Her whole family came over wearing huge cowboy hats and boots, apparently thinking that people in El Paso dress like that (they don't).

Anyway, she spelled her nickname "Jeni" instead of the traditional "Jenny".

As I got older, I saw more and more variations, typically with a y or an ie changed to just a letter i.

The funniest one I ever saw was "SanDeE" (Sandy), in the movie, LA Story.

Of course now we have "Britney" Spears (Brittany) and "Ashlee" Simpson on the scene.

Do you like these cutesified spellings? Do they go to far?

Should guys start doing this? "Steavin", "Jaymes", "Jorj", etc.?

[LDS Jock]

1. I hate them

but that is just me. If someone wants to give their kid a dumb name, its their choice.

[Maddy McCall]

2. Doesn't really matter to me.

If they want to mark themselves for the rest of their lives by changing the y to i and dotting it with a heart, I'm all for it.

:-)

[UdoKier]

10. How did you know she dotted it with a heart?!

You must be psychic!

[Maddy McCall]

12. "They" always do. :-)

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it

and the parents who do it should be killed, and the people who do it to themselves should be killed.

Not that I have an opinion.

And while I'm at it, I want everyone killed who refers to their pets and/or children and/or other loved as "my (their name)", e.g., if the cat's name is "bollix", they say "the other day, my bollix" or if the boy's name is "ZacHaRy" the mother says "Just the other, my little ZacHaRy came running home...".

Both types should be killed.

There really is no other solution.

[blondeatlast]

20. Good morning, Rabrrrrr!

Anyone got a cuppa joe for our dear Rabrrrr?

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. And the SanDeE thing was the first thing I thought of when I saw

the thread title. :-)

"Oh, thank God, you have a normal name, and not one of those LA style names"

"Yeah, that's capital S, small a, small n, capital D, small e, capital E"

I love that exchange!

[AwakeAtLast]

5. I'm a teacher - I hate it!

I service 600 students, and they actually expect me to remember how their name is spelled!

[Maccagirl]

6. For some reason the way the tennis player

Mardy Fish spells his name annoys me. I realize that this is my problem, not his, and I can't even explain why it annoys me, but it does.

[LDS Jock]

7. that bugs me too.. what kind of name is Mardy?

[Momgonepostal]

8. I can handle the "i" in place of "y" but...

other cutsified spellings drive me nuts. My mom knows someone with a son named Joesia. He has a sister named Autium (you know, like the season...DUH).

I hate apostrophes in names too. I went to high school with a M'Lissa. :eyes:

Why don't you just tattoo "I am the offspring of idiots" on the poor kids' foreheads?

[UdoKier]

13. LOL - "M'Lissa" That's a good one!

That "Autium" reminds me of "Autism"

[blondeatlast]

22. When I started work at the library as a circ clerk, one of the

cards I processed was for a little girl named--I swear I am not making this up--I showed the application to others for proof--

LaTreen.

True story.

[Deja Q]

21. M'Lissa sounds like a Klingon name. Go figure. Or is that 'Go fig'?

:D

[GRLMGC]

9. Boo to cutified spellings

They're godawful. I'd never do that to my child. It's not the child's fault that his or her parents are mofos. However, once somebody mutilates his or her own name, there is no one else to blame.

[Flammable Materials]

11. I like Jorj.

Sounds like a Swedish muppet.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. mmmbork bork bork!

[Placebo]

15. I really am against it.

It annoys me. Unless it would be the correct spelling of the name if you were in another country, like Karl instead of Carl, or Marc instead of Mark, that sort of thing.

[anti_shrub]

16. I was so happy my friends had a girl

The boy names they had in mind were just horrible.

I think the problem is that people nowadays think of names that are cute for babies without thinking that one day that kid will have to apply for a job with that formerly-cute baby name.

[WildClarySage]

17. I completely agree

my cousin named his daughter "Kaci". What the hell kind of name is that for an adult woman? It's a stripper's name. He obviously doesn't want her to grow up to have any other kind of profession-that doesn't involve a nametag, anyway.

[Nay]

18. HATE IT ALL. The saddest thing, though, are the kids who have

been named by obviously ignorant parents. I see a lot of job applications, and at least twice I've gotten apps by men named "Micheal." Both times I assumed a typing error and attempted to correct their names -- uh oh. That's how the names were actually spelled! The parents couldn't even spell "Michael", the name they wanted to give their precious baby! A totally common name, written down everywhere! Amazing.

And don't get me started on the name "Antoine." When I saw these corruptions of the name -- "Antwan" and "Antwane"-- I effing gave up. Folks, if you aren't French, don't do French names unless you are willing to spell them sanely! Additionally,do not put French accent marks all over your name! The accent mark actually MEANS something in French, and is not a decoration you hang on on a letter because you think it looks cool! Same for those goddamned apostrophes strewn everywhere! All of this is a mark of total ignorance. OK, enough ranting from this French-Canadian.

[blondeatlast]

19. It's even haoppening to boys' names now. I DESPISE it.

The kids should effing sue, I swear.

[Padraig18]

23. It must suck, being asked your whole life "How do you spell that?"

I get that a lot, because my name is the traditional Irish, rather than English spelling of 'Patrick', but to deliberatly hang 'Jaymes' (James) or 'Debra' (Deborah) around your kid's neck the day he or she is born seems to demonstrate a complete lack of foresight, if nothing else.

:shrug:

[UdoKier]

33. Since Debra WInger is well into her 40s

I guess this is not a new phenomenon.

[Maestro]

24. Well my daughter's name is Gabriela

And we call her Gabi, yes the spelling is correct, not Gabby. We did this following the Hispanic way of spelling the name not for cutesiness.

[CBHagman]

25. I just hate it.

Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran, in their book "Beyond Jennifer and Jason," devoted a whole section to why inventing new spellings for familiar names is a cruel thing to do to a child. The offspring will spend the rest of his or her life explaining to people how to spell and pronounce his/her name.

And in some cases, there are already alternate spellings in use. For example, there are at least five standard spelling variants for Katherine. Do we really need six, seven or eight?

My own pet peeve is the claim that "Elisha" is the equivalent of "Alicia." I think of the actor Elisha Cook Jr. and the prophet in the Bible, not a girl's name, when I see the name Elisha. One co-worker claimed I was confusing Elijah with Elisha (I guess she didn't read far enough). And the Elisha-Alicia confusion also includes gender mix-ups. Is it Mr. Elisha So-and-So or Ms. Elisha So-and-So?

Stop this, parents. Just stop it.

[blondeatlast]

37. Quaterine, Qatarine, Qatrine...

I had to take a shot at it.

My profound apologies...

:hi:

[EstimatedProphet]

26. IMO it's pretentious

and there's more and more of that kind of thing going on. Here's some examples that are hysterically funny.

[Momgonepostal]

32. Great website!

I've book marked it for later.

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

27. Uh... my mom 'did it' to me... I am Cyndee not Cindy or Cynthia...

g'head, taunt me.

[yellowdogintexas]

28. Hate them, hate them, hate them

[BiggJawn]

29. Lemonjello

Pronounced "le-MON-je-LOW"...

Jawn (that's "cutsey"?)

[gollygee]

30. I don't like it either

people like replacing Ys with Is and Is with Ys.

I like traditional spellings.

[hippiechick]

31. I despise them.

I mean, really, can you see Supreme Court Justice 'Britney',
'Kayleigh' or 'Megghan' ? :puke:

Those soap opera names were all the rage when I had HippieKid, but being the forward-thinking liberal I am, I gave her a name that would sit well in the Oval Office, the SCOTUS, or on the cover of Sports Illustrated: Gwyneth Alexandra.


:hippie:

[blondeatlast]

38. My real name is remarkably "Dynasty" like, but it was

totally inadvertent on my paren'ts part (I was born in 1959).

Unfortunately in a way (although I'm proud of it) my father's last name rhymes with "Carrington," and my parent's gave me a lovely but rather unusual first name, Laurel. People used to tell me how much they loved my "Dynast-like" (I never have seen the show) name, and I used to cringe!

I like your daughter's name, and you are so correct!

My son's name (dad is Punjab) is Vikas. I thought it had a rather assertive, smart sound.

[skygazer]

34. I think they're horrible

And I don't think you're doing your kids any favors to give them those names. And how about the people who give their kids names that are puns or jokes? Like Halle Burton or that sort of thing (just an example but I've seen joke names on real people and think it's appalling).

Just plain stupid names are awful too - I think it was Bob Geldof and his wife who named their kid Fifi Trixibelle. :puke:

Then we have Phinnaeus and Hazel......

[blondeatlast]

40. Paula Yates (Bob's ex) and Michael Hutchence named their daughter

Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence.

Not only that, but the poor thing is now an orphan, too!

[eyesroll]

35. I'm a Stacie, with an i-e.

I'm OK with normal variations -- Kristina vs. Christina, Jeffrey vs. Geoffrey, Steven vs. Stephen, etc.

Steavin is just funny...it sounds like a verb.

[Left Is Write]

36. I roll my eyes about it, but what can you do?

I don't understand it, but there are always going to be people who want to be "unique."

I have a perfectly ordinary, very common name, and still people have spelled it wrong my entire life. Why on earth would someone want to make it even MORE difficult on their child by spelling "creatively"? It doesn't make sense.

My oldest child is named Kayla. I named her in 1987; had I known then how wildly popular that name would become, I'd have chosen something else (I heard it and liked it, and because it is a derivative of my own name - Catherine - I thought it appropriate and familial).

Anyway, my mother asked me if I wouldn't like to spell it with a C, so we could have the same initials, and because my mother thinks C's are prettier to write than K's. I like C's better too, but as I told my mother, I was concerned about people spelling her name wrong anyway, and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible by spelling her name the most common way.

My other daughter is named Jane. You'd be surprised at the number of people who ask me how to spell that.

My son is named Julian. People see that written and think I have a daughter names Julieanne. I had no idea there were so many people who didn't know the name Julian!

[CBHagman]

39. You need to hang out with more Britons.

Julian is nothing new to those guys!

Jerry Lewis once called Justine Bateman "Justin" during one of his ghastly telethons. And I heard a Baptist minister call a Sean "seen." Ooh, I need an aspirin...