What is the best system to name people?

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Being called #2265 doesn’t have nice ring to it, though.

Nope, but #1337 does. Anyway unity with the state is it's own reward compared to having such selfish desires like a worded "name".

Of course you would want be #1337.

[Nolo gap]

no one system is best. but an example of the not so best idea being to name our offspring after anyone, or from a list of common names, happened recently.
was on the current news nationally in the u.s. and possibly elsewhere. a person who shares the name of our esteemed found and author of nations states, was a very naughty and rowdy boy on an airplane. the only reason i can be reasonably sure they weren't the same person, is because the miscreant in question, is younger then nation states has existed.

so i think easily pronouncable concatinations of sylables, that don't resemble anything deraugatory, to give each of us a unique name, rather then a common one, would be a much better idea, and not lay trips on children to imitate the mundaneness of others. with every desirable quality another displays, there are often as many not so much so.

[John Waters]

I pity him when he has to learn to write that in school. :/

Well were we to find Elon Musk dead with a giant preschooler's crayon shoved into his left nostril, we should not wonder why it happened.

I accuse Missy of committing murder in the faculty lounge with a giant crayon.
*looks hard at cards again*
Uh, yeah.. that's it.

[Ghost Land]

I’ve always liked Ana Sofía for a girl and Adrian for a boy.

Those are lovely names.

Some names I like if I ever have kids:
Boys: Anthony, Oliver, Vincent
Girls: Katherine (or Kathryn), Victoria, Rose (as a middle name)

It's good to see someone young still like those traditional names. I can actually see myself hypothetically having sons Tony and Vinnie, and a daughter Katie.

Exactly. This is what I've been saying for years. You might think Huntyr or Khayleigh sounds cute and fun now, but think of the headaches that will cause later on in life.

To quote myself, on a different forum, a few years ago in a thread about male names (with the list amended a bit to add a few names I forgot):

Sorry to quote you on this, but this whole approach has some pretty significant and obvious problems, from a race-relations perspective.

Um...how? What's racist about naming your kid Larry?

[Ethel mermania]

Those are lovely names.

Some names I like if I ever have kids:
Boys: Anthony, Oliver, Vincent
Girls: Katherine (or Kathryn), Victoria, Rose (as a middle name)

It's good to see someone young still like those traditional names. I can actually see myself hypothetically having sons Tony and Vinnie, and a daughter Katie.

Sorry to quote you on this, but this whole approach has some pretty significant and obvious problems, from a race-relations perspective.

Um...how? What's racist about naming your kid Larry?

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/imag ... a2q_LYV-6t

[Salandriagado]

If we're going to do this, can we at least have something that splits the Dr/Dr ambiguity?

Dr/Dr ambiguity?

Like how physicians, veterinarians and dentists falsely call themselves Dr without earning a PhD? I mean, you could just use the German system where only PhD holders get the Dr honourific.

It's not "false": it's that the title "Dr" has two completely different meanings that isn't distinguished in any way by the form of use.

[Salandriagado]

Those are lovely names.

Some names I like if I ever have kids:
Boys: Anthony, Oliver, Vincent
Girls: Katherine (or Kathryn), Victoria, Rose (as a middle name)

It's good to see someone young still like those traditional names. I can actually see myself hypothetically having sons Tony and Vinnie, and a daughter Katie.

Sorry to quote you on this, but this whole approach has some pretty significant and obvious problems, from a race-relations perspective.

Um...how? What's racist about naming your kid Larry?

The racist part is having a list of "acceptable" names and declaring all other names (including, say, literally all traditional names from cultures that are not Western European) as unacceptable.

[Luziyca]

Name your kid whatever the hell you like and if the kid doesn't like it, they can change their name once they're old enough to do so.

I have considered changing my surname since it is not easy for others to pronounce it, but I'd probably adopt my middle name or my father's surname if I did so than keep my current surname (my mother's surname: as to why, it's complicated but TL;DR they only got married 4 years after I was born because they didn't want people to think they were marrying just for the my sake). But given my first name is basically unique, I might just go mononymous if I legally could, since I'm almost definitely the only person my age who has my first name in the province.

I have a very uncommon first name too -- AFAIK there are two or three people in the US that have it, including me -- and it would be pretty cool to just use that if I didn't have to worry about forms where last name is a required field.

On the other hand, my last name is very common, and I often come across people that have the same name, even though they are not related to me -- including a well-known Red Sox player and the boss of a place where I had a summer job.

People often ask for last names because they are supposed to be more distinctive, but my last name isn't distinctive at all.

Indeed. If nothing else, it would be cool to just be able to say "my name is Odin, full stop," and leave it there, and to only have to fill the first name of any form. Of course, it'll probably be an issue if I marry someone and have children but I'll probably just use their surname, particularly if it's easier to pronounce than my current one.

For me, my surname is at least not a very common surname where I live so it is somewhat distinctive: the only person that I heard of with my surname outside my family and who isn't in Poland is some guy who got convicted for a pretty serious crime a few years ago, but we might be related from my maternal grandfather's side given that he and his parents didn't get along very much and he eventually was cut off by his parents/cut his parents off, so I don't know anyone on that side of the family (though my mom knows some relatives on that side, mostly because of funerals).

[Resilient Acceleration]

But but Christina is such a pretty name. Chris is a great short name too.

But it's not my name, and it makes no etymological sense when I am not Christian.

Christina is better than Kirsten, though.

Ironically one of my friend, who is also a Muslim, wants to be called with his first name "Chris" because his middle name (which everyone uses) means "sardine".

[Ifreann]

[
Your partner's middle name is Neelix? Wild.

Nah, his middle name is the same as the first name of the most important person in Starfleet history.

More important than Neelix?

[Dakini]

Nah, his middle name is the same as the first name of the most important person in Starfleet history.

More important than Neelix?

According to Lower Decks, yes.

[Ghost Land]

It's good to see someone young still like those traditional names. I can actually see myself hypothetically having sons Tony and Vinnie, and a daughter Katie.

Um...how? What's racist about naming your kid Larry?

The racist part is having a list of "acceptable" names and declaring all other names (including, say, literally all traditional names from cultures that are not Western European) as unacceptable.

Except that I never said everybody ought to have a name picked from my small, incomplete list. You're jumping waaaay too far to a conclusion here. If you're of Hispanic descent and want to name your kid Carlos or Juan or Guadalupe, go the fuck ahead! Nobody's stopping you. I certainly won't; even subjectively they have a lot of awesome names! If you're of Japanese descent and want to name your kid Haruto or Honoka (the most popular names in Japan as of 2020), go ahead; who's stopping you? And so on and so forth. Show me where I ever said that everybody should be picking names from the small list I provided. Just because those are the names I like best doesn't mean I'd be in favor of mandating everybody's name be picked from that small pool; besides, it would be pretty boring if the name distribution were, say, 25% John, 20% Larry, 20% Dave, 15% Steve, 10% Mike, 5% Chris, and 5% Brad.

The names I'm taking issue with are the overly cutesy, tacky, trendy names people give their kids now thinking it sounds cool or cute now, but will be a pain in the ass later in life due to problems with spelling, pronunciation, or just the embarrassment of having to walk up to people and tell them, "Hi, my name is Beautiful." A made-up name or completely contrived spelling of a different, legitimate name is "traditional" to exactly nobody. Ever wonder why you won't come across a 40-year-old woman, or let alone a 75-year-old woman, named "Nevaeh"? Because plain and simple, that wasn't a name then!

Case in point: I actually really do like the name Caitlin. It's a good Irish name and I'd imagine it was pretty refreshing to hear something different in the 70s and 80s when that name first became popular. In America by the 70s it was already starting to be pronounced the way it looks (as opposed to the original Irish pronunciation which is incidentally where we get the name Kathleen from, and seems kind of counterintuitive to Americans with no ties to Ireland). So that's where we got phonetically-spelled variants like Katelyn - which I can completely understand the emergence of. But by the time that name peaked in popularity in the late 90s, there were so many weird variant spellings that a Caitlin of any form now is going to have to spend her entire life having to spell it out for people letter-by-letter, and some of these variant spellings look quite frankly ridiculous! There's been way too much focus on trying to be "youneek" and "kre8yv" without regard for how the bearer of that name is going to feel about it for the rest of his or her life.

[Ifreann]

...A made-up name...

All names are made up.

[Ghost Land]

...A made-up name...

All names are made up.

Ultimately all words are made up, as human languages were by definition created by humans. But there's a difference between a name that has an actual meaning behind it and centuries of consistent use; and a name that was invented in 2005 by some random person in some random part of the country.

[Forsher]

All names are made up.

Ultimately all words are made up, as human languages were by definition created by humans. But there's a difference between a name that has an actual meaning behind it and centuries of consistent use; and a name that was invented in 2005 by some random person in some random part of the country.

Not really.

Forsher, for example, is a 100% made up name by some random person. It is, also, an actual name belonging to people with Wikipedia articles. No, wait, I was mistaken... they're mentioned in Wikipedia articles for other people/things, e.g. this Manson Family Member's lawyer.

[Ifreann]

All names are made up.

Ultimately all words are made up, as human languages were by definition created by humans. But there's a difference between a name that has an actual meaning behind it and centuries of consistent use; and a name that was invented in 2005 by some random person in some random part of the country.

That difference being time.

[Ghost Land]

Ultimately all words are made up, as human languages were by definition created by humans. But there's a difference between a name that has an actual meaning behind it and centuries of consistent use; and a name that was invented in 2005 by some random person in some random part of the country.

Not really.

Forsher, for example, is a 100% made up name by some random person. It is, also, an actual name belonging to people with Wikipedia articles. No, wait, I was mistaken... they're mentioned in Wikipedia articles for other people/things, e.g. this Manson Family Member's lawyer.

Admittedly you were the first Forsher I knew of - but I always figured it was someone's last name or something. Turns out you thought you'd made it up, but it was actually coincidentally already in use as a last name - so you didn't so much "invent" it as you probably thought. There have been tons of times I've thought I'd had an original idea, and then find out that idea already exists or at least has been had by someone else before.

But these anecdotes still don't do much to invalidate my point. There is nobody with the last name of "Khayleigh" (a particularly freaky name example I've seen). It doesn't mean anything in any language. Ultimately it comes from the name "Kaylee" (or Kailey, Kayley, Kailee, etc.), which originated from a circa-1980s decision of "let's just mash Kay and Lee together!" and took off from there, spawning all kinds of increasingly ridiculous spelling variants as time has gone on. Not a lot of meaning or tradition to go off of there.

[The Blaatschapen]

Ultimately all words are made up, as human languages were by definition created by humans. But there's a difference between a name that has an actual meaning behind it and centuries of consistent use; and a name that was invented in 2005 by some random person in some random part of the country.

That difference being time.

Basically, peer pressure by dead people that John is a "normal" name.

[Ghost Land]

That difference being time.

Basically, peer pressure by dead people that John is a "normal" name.

Nope. No peer pressure here. The only person influencing my decisions as to what I would name my hypothetical children is myself. And I would give them names that I subjectively think sound cool, that are easy to spell and pronounce, and that have an actual meaning and history behind them. The name John ultimately is of Hebrew origin and translates to "God is gracious" - a meaning that I'd imagine has a lot of significance to religious people; never mind that John has been a very popular name for a long time, and a lot of people have no doubt wanted to name their kids after another John in the family or who otherwise meant a lot to them.

What does the name "Khayleigh" mean? Nothing.

[Ifreann]

Basically, peer pressure by dead people that John is a "normal" name.

Nope. No peer pressure here. The only person influencing my decisions as to what I would name my hypothetical children is myself. And I would give them names that I subjectively think sound cool, that are easy to spell and pronounce, and that have an actual meaning and history behind them. The name John ultimately is of Hebrew origin and translates to "God is gracious" - a meaning that I'd imagine has a lot of significance to religious people; never mind that John has been a very popular name for a long time, and a lot of people have no doubt wanted to name their kids after another John in the family or who otherwise meant a lot to them.

I bet when the first Hebrew speaker took it into their head to call their child "God is gracious" it would have sounded to their neighbours a lot like someone calling their child "Beautiful" sounds to you.

What does the name "Khayleigh" mean? Nothing.

If it's an invented name, shouldn't we have to ask the inventor to know its meaning?

[The Blaatschapen]

Basically, peer pressure by dead people that John is a "normal" name.

Nope. No peer pressure here. The only person influencing my decisions as to what I would name my hypothetical children is myself. And I would give them names that I subjectively think sound cool, that are easy to spell and pronounce, and that have an actual meaning and history behind them. The name John ultimately is of Hebrew origin and translates to "God is gracious" - a meaning that I'd imagine has a lot of significance to religious people; never mind that John has been a very popular name for a long time, and a lot of people have no doubt wanted to name their kids after another John in the family or who otherwise meant a lot to them.

What does the name "Khayleigh" mean? Nothing.

It's a song by Mharillion *nods*

[Old Tyrannia]

Personally I am fond of Puritan naming traditions. Who wouldn't want to go through life as If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone? Or by the remarkably optimistic label Has-descendants?

[The Archregimancy]

Personally I am fond of Puritan naming traditions. Who wouldn't want to go through life as If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone?

And who can forget his brother Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barebone? It does make you wonder if there was any minor clue that their father Praise-God Barebone was a man of faith.

Minor trivia note... If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone (Nicholas Barbon to his friends) went on to almost singlehandedly invent fire insurance and the concept of bank-backed mortgages.

But my two favourites are:

1) Farewell Sykes's brother Die-Well Sykes.

and...

2) Kill-Sin Pimple.

[Ethel mermania]

Personally I am fond of Puritan naming traditions. Who wouldn't want to go through life as If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone?

And who can forget his brother Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barebone? It does make you wonder if there was any minor clue that their father Praise-God Barebone was a man of faith.

Minor trivia note... If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone (Nicholas Barbon to his friends) went on to almost singlehandedly invent fire insurance and the concept of bank-backed mortgages.

But my two favourites are:

1) Farewell Sykes's brother Die-Well Sykes.

and...

2) Kill-Sin Pimple.

Sin pimples are horrible, I understand the name.

My favorite American name is

States Rights Gist.

Take that civil war revisionists.

[The Archregimancy]

What does the name "Khayleigh" mean? Nothing.

If it's an invented name, shouldn't we have to ask the inventor to know its meaning?

In fact we know the meaning of 'Kayleigh'.

As Blaat has alluded to, it's a portmanteau of 'Kay Lee', the name of a woman that Marillion's then-lead singer Fish (Derek W. Dick) had dated.

'Kay' is in origin a diminutive of 'Catherine', and 'Lee' in this context was a surname.

The name was then popularised in the UK from the mid 80s via the brief popularity of neo-prog power ballads; it barely existed, if at all, before 1985.

Not that popularisation of previously unknown names via mass media is particularly unusual. Gary Lineker's first name was unheard of until the mid 1920s, when a casting agent recommended that up and coming actor Frank James Cooper take the name of her hometown of Gary, Indiana (which was named after steel magnate Elbert Henry Gary).