I am 35 weeks pregnant and we are not deciding on a name from our list until we see the baby. This has prompted people to talk to me about “crazy” names they have heard. First and foremost is, of course, La-a ([name]Ladasha[/name]). Then comes Lemmonjello and Orangello. Then Shithead and Dumbass.
These names are obviously urban legends, right? I swear, if I hear the “my cousin’s boyfriend’s uncle’s student has the name La-a” story one more time I’m going to name my daughter that just to confirm the legend (kidding, of course, but am getting annoyed…)
I think they’re all urban legends. No parent is that stupid surely. My grandmother insists that she knew a woman who heard of a woman who a woman she worked with (or something) picked the name out of a Sear’s catalog and it was Pajama but she pronounced it Paj -uh-may…
There was a also a 12 year old in my daycare group once who said that her mom who works in a clinic met a woman who knew a woman who knew the brother Lemonjello and Orangejello…
I’m tired of it and just laugh at the people who tell those stories to you.
I know the one about naming a daughter ‘Female’ is true. There were 28 girls named Female in 2010. I work for the government, and I see so many crazy names, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were true. A co-worker talked to a woman who named her twins [name]Dijon[/name] and Dijonaise. I spoke to someone named ‘[name]Princess[/name] of Life’.
Penguin - I don’t believe there were actually 28 girls named Female in 2010, but rather, there were 28 girls born who did not yet have names when their Social Security Numbers were assigned. Though you can’t get a social security number without a name, my guess is that in 2010, some hospital somewhere let parents put “Female” down for the name, with the understanding that they would change it later. Same for [name]Male[/name].
I do think most of these urban legends aren’t true, but there are some pretty horrendous names out there. The book Freakonomics has a great chapter about names, and they talk about real people named Winner, Loser, and Temptress (among others).
And it may not be true, but because of the La-a story, my friend and I like to joke that next we’ll hear about someone who named their child L’ (LaPostrophe)
What about Nosmo [name]King[/name]? Haha. [name]Every[/name] time I do hear one of these stories it’s someone’s cousin’s wife’s aunt’s babysitter’s hairstylist’s niece or something. I’ve seen people on other forums that INSIST their mom/cousin/sister-in-law/etc taught one or saw one at a hospital (usually where these people work), but I’ve yet to see any sort of proof. Though it is possible that someone knew about the urban legend and decided “hey, La-a is a great name! I’m going to actually use it!” Never know, but I’m still waiting for something to prove these people exist.
They’re urban legend’s fersher. My mum said her friend worked as a midwife, who knew of someone calling their daughter Female… I’m not convinced this is true but my mum believes it to be lol.
However as far as I am aware, Shithead is/was a genuine [name]Indian[/name] name that unfortunately didn’t work so well when it crossed cultures.
I’ve heard some really awful TRUE names before, I don’t even repeat some because it’s stupid but I believe the legends. What about that Swedish couple who named their child a bunch of numbers to stand up for freedom of choice or something. I read that news article, it’s become a legal battle.
As a teacher in [name]Florida[/name], I can tell you that, unfortunately, some of these “legends” are actually true. For example, when I was a yearbook teacher, there was a picture for Shithead J—(pronounced shi-theed). Likewise, there are many people here in town who know Lemonjelo and Orangelo, who are currently in a state prison here…
I have had some students with some very strange names. Currently we have a [name]Timber[/name] at our school. We also had a Nauticaa and a Chandelier. Not all the strange names belong to African American students and I’m not talking about “normal” culturally different names from [name]Asia[/name] or Eastern Europe. Mostly they are word names or names that are made up out of lots of vowels and apostrophes.
However, the strangest names come from our obituary pages. Those Southerners sure came up with some doozies back in the pre WWII days. My next-door neighbour [name]Gwen[/name] had three older brothers who were named for battlefields in WWI!
Not to call you a liar or anything but do you have any proof? An article about the brothers being arrested? A photo of the yearbook page (with photo and last name edited out of course)? I’m really skeptical about these names being out there but I’d love to see if it really is true!
Lemonjello and Orangejello must be about 80 by now, and they move from town to town, attending every possible high school without ever graduating or displaying any visible signs of aging. Amazingly, it also seems that somehow I always happen to meet someone whose mother used to work at the last school they attended. Astonishing.
If you do a google images search for orangejello and lemonjello you find a man called [name]Lemon[/name] Pig [name]Howard[/name] III
There is also a man from Singapore called Batman Bin Suparman
I know. I started a forum on another site where people can post names they hear when they’re out and about… I thought it would be a useful tool for the site since so many of them lean toward the trendy/made-up names there. It also happens to be a source of amusement for weird/sometimes awful choices. When I first started it (at the beginning of last summer) a lot of people posted things like, “Oh, my mom is a teacher at this school and was telling me she has a student named [name]Le[/name]-a! You’d think it was [name]Leah[/name], right? Nope, it’s like [name]Ladasha[/name]! [name]How[/name] dumb is that?!” When I would politely say that I couldn’t believe it because there was just no way everyone I ran into on the internet knew a [name]Le[/name]-a/La-a, an Oranjello, and a Shithead, she was like, “Are you calling my mom a liar?!”
Um, no. But there’s just no way that many parents couldn’t think through what they were actually giving their child for [name]EVERY[/name] person who joins a name forum (or at least 20 percent of them!)–which, really, is very little of the population–to know at least one La-a! Thankfully, I haven’t heard any stories like that in real life. I got an email forwarded to me about a [name]Le[/name]-a in [name]Alabama[/name] or something, explaining how Snopes.com had debunked it, but other than that, nothing. I don’t think I could take it, either, haha.
Yes, I have the yearbook picture with Shithead J and no, I am not going to post it just to satisfy anyone. And the brothers referred to are in the state prison in Crestview. Come to Pensacola and you can meet their godmother.
I have had students in my class said that they would name their daughter Genre, for example, and today one girl said she would name her daughter [name]Audrey[/name]-[name]Monroe[/name]…Not all the kids I know with odd names are African Americans, so I think the racism thing needs to die down. I’ve taught in this town for over ten years, and there are many strange names in the Florabama.