"Unusual Spellings of Baby Names Out of Control"

[sas85]

Hmmm. I reckon it depends on what name you've got.


I on the other hand HATE that my mum gave me a common name and a common spelling, that would translate into whatever country I might happen to be in. Because there is ALWAYS another Sarah in class, church, work anywhere so I have always had to be identified by both my names or by a nick name - ie- little Sarah.

Guess you can't win ;-)

PS - Arimeh-Mel, how do you pronounce your daughters name? I've never seen it before.

[Taurean]

Totally agree with the poll - it has gotten out of hand.

I think it bothers me most as when you say a lot of these creatively spelt names, they sound identical to the traditional spelling so I don't see the point in adding/switching letters in an attempt to make the name original. It still sounds the same but the parents and child just have to correct everyone when it comes to spelling it for the rest of their lives. I just don't get it.

[butterfly_warrior]

There were many, many reasons we chose Samuel - none of them to do with ease of spelling or pronunciation! He mainly gets Sam (cos that's his initials as well) and I defy anyone to mis-spell Sam! Just wait, someone will now.

As a teacher I really despise names with unusual spellings. I have a particular passionate hatred for names that you see on the roll and have no idea whether you're dealing with a male or female student. I've once had a class with two completely different spellings of Annalise and as a result I could never get any of them right.

I've seen so many kids doomed to a lifetime of having to spell their names for people, or what I think is even worse, continually having to correct pronunciation of their name... It is a little out of control, but I think it depends on your perspective and what circles you move in as to how much you are exposed to it.

Samuel Angus was chosen for the meanings of his names and the initials it gave him, but I'm really glad that he (hopefully!) won't have the spelling/pronunciation problem to deal with!

BW

[Phteven]

Jayne is a tradition spelling personally I don't regard it as being an unusual spelling, it's just a variant, lot's of names have a number of spellings all of which are normal. Jhaiyn on the other hand, hmmmm.
We tried to chose names that are pretty simple and spellings that are fairly phonetic, I didn't want my children to have to tell people how to pronounce their name or how to spell it. It gets so tedious always having to help people out.

[Arimeh]

PS - Arimeh-Mel, how do you pronounce your daughters name? I've never seen it before.

Meh-kel-tee

We tried to spell it phonetically.. LOL

[satya]

I'm not into unusual spellings myself but I don't think it's out of control. I think for a while there it was very popular but lately we seem to be seeing a huge swing back to "old fashioned" names which are now becoming popular again.

[Astrid]

I am not a fan of made up spellings, but I do like going back in history for varients of a name. I have to admit yes, I do think it is getting out of control and have thought that for ages.

I find the internet is not a good place for looking up spellings of a name, especially the baby name sites that allow member to update meanings/history etc, some are just plain wrong. I just would not trust some of them with the background of names, well saying that I did not even trust most baby name books. I found the Prenguin Dictionary of first names and found it met my needs for historical accuracy.

[~Kim~]

I have to say that I'm surprised at the poll results - seeing aas the practce seems so common ATM, though that could just be the audience of the paper too.
BW I've only got 3 letters too, no middle name and people still seem to want to put their own creative spin on it, like being creative is so prevalent that everyone must have one....not me.

[Doing my best]

I am not against different spellings of names, as many of them do have a meaning behind them (take Maz's and Sarah's children just as examples). They may seem creative, but when you get the history, it seems the modern way, or our language are the creative versions.

Suppose my biggest frustration is people spelling or pronouncing a name wrong after being told the correct way. I worked with an Irish girl named Niamh (pronounced Neeve in case you didn't know). The amount of people who called her "Nim" after seeing it spelt or emailed 'Neeve' after hearing the pronounciation even after being corrected was unbelievable..

My DD's name is Kimberley, however even after 19 months of me correcting the inlaws they insist on spelling in Kimberly. I also have a friend who spells it Kymberley and both these annoy me to the end of the earth cause they know better! I am ok with both these spellings, but not for my DD cause it isn't her name!

[boomba]

I dont realy care how people spell their kids name its totally up to them. I do prefer traditional spelling.

Owning a bakery we see heaps of different spelling and poor Dh has to write it on the cakes! He stresses o much cause if he gets it wrong its ruined. So he has to keep checking as he spells it! So I suppose thats kinda annoying?

[Roryrory]

My issue with unusual spelling is this - there are a lot of snobs out there who are going to think if you have an unusual spelling to your name, they can assume a whole lot of things about you as a person (from the viewpoint of socio-economic status, education levels, etc).

[Anila]

Also meant to add that I have an interest in numerology and can kind of understand making small changes so that a child is given a name with a number combination that is more fortuitous.

I have a thing for odd numbers,(ocd a little) so all my childrens first names add up to odd numbers, for this reason i have altered the spelling of two names, but they are still realistic spellings and not way out there, and i wasnt trying to be "creative" either.

I do have to spell out the names occasionally, because there are quite a few diffent ways to spell them. That being said, i also found the spelling for them in a baby book, so someone before me, has also thought of that spelling.

[Arimeh]

Rory - thats probably very accurate. Unfortunately. My poor kids.. bwahahaha

Just for the record though - we slightly changed the original spelling of Aricyn (original spelling is Aricin - its scandinavian) because we didn't like the way it looked.

And Mehkelti - well yeah we did sorta make that up. LOL

[Bathsheba]

I know what you mean Rory... and tend to agree.

Regarding the newspaper readership (Herald Sun) I too am surprised that it's 91% against the current trends... demographics would indicate to me that the average Sun reader is probably more likely to be part of the "out of control" group. Hope this doesn't miff any Sun fans.

It would be interesting to see how The Age or The Australian readership polled. My guess is that their more conservative readers would be even closer to 100% in saying "Yes".

The Sun is good for sport... that's why I read it mainly... DH brings home both the Sun and The Age daily.

[*TripleJ*]

its funny coz i like unusual spelling but my son has a very traditional name james but only because he was named after someone i really like vyolett (maz )as a spelling coz it looks pretty and its still spelt like its said and i also like jaxon which is a bit out there i think the issue is the frustration ppl have when they have to constantly spell their name for ppl hence the poll results

[sneakysparkle]

I kinda sit on the fence with unusual spelling. I sometimes prefer the unusual speeling and often prefer the traditional. I think it becomes interesting though when the traditional spelling of something is suddenly unusual because the new way of spelling it has become so common. Like Michaela (traditional) and Mikayla (modern) - which incidently happen to be the girls name we are considering, we are undecided as to which spelling we prefer.

Do you want to add another to the mix?! I know of someone who named their bub McKayla...

[~Raven~]

LOL, I have had 31 years of having to spell my name for people, and my name isn't even 'creative' LOL. Thats why I have a beef with it

Same here lol.

[Trillian]

Hehe Sam, I was nearly going to be a Sam and always thought that would have made life easier, but I guess it might not have after all PMSL!

There is not one single child's name on here that I can't look at, and not know how to say it - even Maz and Arimeh's children's names , and I bet that the poll probably wasn't referring so much to unusual names, but just the total randomness of replacing letters just so it looks different.