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Weird Personal Names

When I was in high school, there was girl there named Penelope-- not a typical name in a small farming community, but certainly not outlandish either. Except to our Principal, who was a king bull asshole, and decided she needed to be singled out for not having a "good 'murrican name". Every time he spoke her name in public, it was "PENN-a-lope", even though he was repeatedly corrected. Dick. He's dead now (yay!).
 
An email I received the other day:

Evidently, like me, almost two-thirds of people suffer from some sort of sleep problem! If you too suffer from sleep problems you will know that it can affect your energy and mood, cause anxiety, teeth grinding and sleep apnoea.

Whilst reading about sleep problems I came across this fascinating article. Take a look for yourself here

Lucy Jane Signature

An unusual surname.
 
When I was in high school, there was girl there named Penelope-- not a typical name in a small farming community, but certainly not outlandish either. Except to our Principal, who was a king bull asshole, and decided she needed to be singled out for not having a "good 'murrican name". Every time he spoke her name in public, it was "PENN-a-lope", even though he was repeatedly corrected. Dick. He's dead now (yay!).

A Southern gal named Penelope Pitstop would like a word with him.
 
Names not changed to protect the innocent, because it would defeat the point of the story.
More classic Hong Kong English names.

I have a student named Riff (as in 'guitar riff', I guess). We were talking in class about parents' names. He says 'My daddy's name is Fox'. The local teacher started crowing with laughter, saying 'what kind of name is "Fox"?' (she's obviously not a fan of the X-Files). I asked her what her English name was (I only know her as 'Ms. Cheung'). She came over sheepish and said she never told anyone. 'Oh go on,' I said. Her name is Pinky.

I teach an elementary school student who gave himself the English 'name' Dr Sound.

A chap in a language school in Taiwan tells me he has an adult student called 'Orange'.
 
Re: Virtue Names. Back in my hippie days, there was a small cult or spiritual community out of Seattle called the Love Family or the Love Israel Family -- NOT the notorious Children of God Family. I knew a few folks who were involved, and they were given new "Family names" like "Compassion Israel" or "Non-Complacency Israel" by the spiritual leader of the group, the front name being the quality they rither embodied or needed to work on.
 
I work with two local teachers in my class. Recently I was teaching a lesson which involved separating a list of names into boy's names and girl's names. For example, 'Betty', that's a girl's name. 'Jimmy', that's a boy. We got to 'Fred'. That's a boy's name, I said. You what? Said both of my local teachers. Fred is a girl's name. Turns out the female office manager at this campus is called Fred and that's the only Fred they've ever met, so it's a natural conclusion to make.
 
I work with two local teachers in my class. Recently I was teaching a lesson which involved separating a list of names into boy's names and girl's names. For example, 'Betty', that's a girl's name. 'Jimmy', that's a boy. We got to 'Fred'. That's a boy's name, I said. You what? Said both of my local teachers. Fred is a girl's name. Turns out the female office manager at this campus is called Fred and that's the only Fred they've ever met, so it's a natural conclusion to make.

Anyone who's watched "Angel" knows that Fred is a quite reasonable name for a woman!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Burkle
 
Fred...as in Freda?
Just as in 'Fred', people choose or have chosen for them all sorts of arbitrary things as their 'English name' in Hong Kong. Also a lot of people called stuff like 'Joey' without having any inkling that it's short for 'Joseph'.
 
Unique boy names included Arrow, Awesome, Buzz, Echo, Lucifer, Harlem-Ace, Valentine, Merlin, Winter and Wit. [/URL]

I recall very clearly, I've probably posted this already, in fact, a friend of mine telling me that his then-neighbours had named their daughter Lucy Fleur [+Surname], but had been so immersed in names and variations that they had not twigged what this sounded like.

I can't remember the surname, but I have an inkling that it was a colour: greene, white, brown or something.

Lucy Fleur Greene?
 
On 9gag this just came along. Never know if it's real or fake:
https://9gag.com/gag/a3R8Rpe

Daughter called ABCDE, should be pronounced as "ab-city" (?)

From the comments:
  • In France, some names can be refused. For example, last time, some parents wanted their daughter to be called Nutella. The judge made it become Ella.
  • A New Zealand man has changed his name to "Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova" after losing a drunken bet at a poker game.
  • JKMN is pronounced Noël (There's no L in the small piece of alphabet)
  • L-a is pronounced Ldasha (L dash A)
  • Sssst is pronounced Forest (4 S's and a T)
 
On 9gag this just came along. Never know if it's real or fake:
https://9gag.com/gag/a3R8Rpe

Daughter called ABCDE, should be pronounced as "ab-city" (?)

From the comments:
  • In France, some names can be refused. For example, last time, some parents wanted their daughter to be called Nutella. The judge made it become Ella.
  • A New Zealand man has changed his name to "Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova" after losing a drunken bet at a poker game.
  • JKMN is pronounced Noël (There's no L in the small piece of alphabet)
  • L-a is pronounced Ldasha (L dash A)
  • Sssst is pronounced Forest (4 S's and a T)

ABCDE : genuine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abcde
Nutella : genuine. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30993608
Full Metal Havok : supposedly true (even though the Daily Mail reported on it). https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-zealand-man-loses-bet-changes-name_n_4935682?
L-a : urban legend. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/le-a/
 
It seems the Madison name for girls began after the movie Splash. Where the main character had to make up a false name, saw a sign for Madison Square Garden and voila!
Friends of my sister have a daughter (late teens/early twenties) called Madison - it's a good name...
 
Abcde (pronounced /ˈæbsədiː/) is a unisex given name in the United States. It is composed of the first five letters of the English alphabet, and has no other meaning.

As many as 328 children were named Abcde in the United States between 1990 and 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abcde
Never, never, never in my life have I ever met, heard of or seen this as the name of any person who resides in the US. Just so you know.

I'm glad I'm not a school teacher.
 
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