• PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    I mean, hippie culture used names like “summer” and “rain” which are bonkers but we got used to it.

    I watched an interview with someone who was named after a car part and they said it was fairly common, but I can’t find that interview to figure out what country it was anymore.

    Old names that span cultures often have wildly different spellings, or pronunciations that don’t seem to make sense in English (like pretty much any Celtic name). It’s one thing to appropriate that culture, it’s another thing to say that names taken or derived from that culture are stupid. People move. People have parents or grandparents from other places. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say the name is bad just because it’s spelled unusually or is something that isn’t typically a name where we live.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Why is it better if a name is an English word? In fact isn’t that exactly why you’re saying they’re terrible names?

        And it’s cute that you think those names fell out of fashion because they’re “bad” and that they won’t be back in a couple generation along with all the names that were popular at the same time as those ones.

        In the meantime, why don’t we shit on names like “john” which is a stupid misspelling of the original Yohanan?

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          probably beacuse im an english speaker growing up in america. Cognitive bias and all that.

          I’m sure they’ll be back later, i’ll still hate them just a little though.

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Like… I agree they’re bad. But mostly because people are just stealing little snippets of cultures they know nothing about, just to make their kids names unique.

            I don’t think there is anything wrong with a unique name, but don’t make a mockery of another culture in the attempt.

            But probably avoid names that rhyme with dirty words…

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 months ago

              idk, i think it’s productive to make fun of names from time to time, i think we attach to them too much. It’s definitely too much to make fun of people with bad names though.

              There are definitely a lot of other names in other cultures, but i would need some genuine context before hand. Otherwise im just going to assume it isn’t a real name, because people have a weird propensity to just fucking lie all the time for some reason.

              • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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                7 months ago

                That’s reasonable. Unfortunately the kid (and maybe even the parent) doesn’t know. They just saw it somewhere and copied it. Like all the “eigh” instead of “ey” is Celtic, but the folks naming their kids probably don’t even know that. As a result they make all Celtic names look dumb by association. That said, I love a good Celtic name, so I might be one of those people who’d do it 😅

                You’re right though, people take names too seriously. As long as a name isn’t gonna rhyme with something nasty, it’s fine.

                • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  7 months ago

                  i genuinely cant imagine putting that much effort into naming someone only to completely fuck it up and for them to be stuck with a shitty name, or at least having a shitty name at one point for the entirety of their life.

                  Literally just stick to the normal names, pick one that people aren’t using at that point in time, or one that they are, literally who cares. Bonus points if you use the most common generic name because it provides slightly more anonymity.

                  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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                    7 months ago

                    You can’t imagine someone putting in that much effort.I can’t imagine why someone would be so passionate about making fun of someone else’s name.

                    Like… you’re saying “they might get made fun of” but youre the one making fun of them. Just dont. Idky, but it’s the people who are making fun of kids who are the most concerned that people will make fun of kids.