Re: The 5 Worst Rated Names
in reply to a message by LunaTheMaltipoo
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Basemath? Okay, so it's a name, an obscure one to say the least. But when I saw it it looked like "base math" like some branch of mathematics nobody studies.
Most of the names on this list are there because BTn in general attracts ... well, name snobs who as a group hate "surnames as first names" and "kre8iv spellyngs" and "popular" names. They wouldn't necessarily dislike the names if they weren't spelled unusually or weren't popular.
A couple of the names, like Lagina and Dick, are disliked for rather obvious anatomical reasons, though so far as I know, Lagina was never that much used as a name. Dick was but it's been out of fashion for a good few generations, doubtless since mores about using off-color language and admitting that you know an off-color meaning of a word became more relaxed.
Tawana is on there probably because of its stereotypical racial associatio, but the name itself is now quite dated.
Most of the names on this list are there because BTn in general attracts ... well, name snobs who as a group hate "surnames as first names" and "kre8iv spellyngs" and "popular" names. They wouldn't necessarily dislike the names if they weren't spelled unusually or weren't popular.
A couple of the names, like Lagina and Dick, are disliked for rather obvious anatomical reasons, though so far as I know, Lagina was never that much used as a name. Dick was but it's been out of fashion for a good few generations, doubtless since mores about using off-color language and admitting that you know an off-color meaning of a word became more relaxed.
Tawana is on there probably because of its stereotypical racial associatio, but the name itself is now quite dated.
Just to point out again that for someone my age or older the slang meaning of Dick just would not be the first thing that would spring to mind when one hears or sees the name, precisely because one did know so many men called Dick. It would be the name that would come to mind first. It's only when Richard went out of style and Rich and Rick became the more common pet forms of it that younger people started immediately thinking of the slang meaning when they heard the word and so began to see it as inappropriate as a name. (And the slang meaning only goes back to around 1895 and I really think a lot of AMericans, especially middle class women, wouldn't have known it at all until the 1950s.)
John has not one but two "bad" slang meanings in the USA -- toilet and prostitute's customer -- but it has never become uncommon enough for people not to know several men or boys called John (or Jon), so one's mind doesn't immediately go to the unforunate meanings when one hears the word and people don't think of it as an inappropriate name.
John has not one but two "bad" slang meanings in the USA -- toilet and prostitute's customer -- but it has never become uncommon enough for people not to know several men or boys called John (or Jon), so one's mind doesn't immediately go to the unforunate meanings when one hears the word and people don't think of it as an inappropriate name.
Oh man... Lagina reminded me... there is a (rare) Hebrew name Mangina (pronounces mahn-gee-nah with a hard g) (meaning melody) that sounds lovely but the English spelling is... not great. I'm not adding it to the site because it's rare and essentially unusable nowadays but if it was... I think that would make the list.
Also Bitcha (beet-KHA) has obvious spelling issues.
And the Yiddish name Trany.
Also Bitcha (beet-KHA) has obvious spelling issues.
And the Yiddish name Trany.
This message was edited 12/28/2022, 4:45 AM