A friend teaches in an inner city school and says that there's great creativity in names - almost every name has an apostrophe somewhere and often spellings are unrelated to pronunciation. She had two sisters, Letiticia and Latrina (!!??!). Another student's name was pronounced "Ash-o-lay". She said she saw it in the attendance book, and didn't dare try to say it herself, so she asked for help in pronunciation. The spelling: "Asshole". Poor kid!
Sue
When Maureen worked for a large department store one of the "posher" customers was a Mrs Sidebotham, pronounced "siddi-bot-ohm". Shades of Hyacinth Bucket!
I once taught a child called Fanta. I thought it was a lovely, exotic name for a pretty islander girl until I heard her sisters' names: Pepsi, Sprite, Coca, Pepper and Tabby. Their brother was called George.
A couple of years ago, a family of refugees from the Sudan came to live near us. The boy had the same forename as his surname, which was unusual and hard (for us) to say. The girl's name was spelled 'Asshole' and pronounced 'A- shoal' with the emphasis on the second syllable.
When DD was born, I was discussing odd names with one of the NICU nurses and she told me of a woman who had called her daughter 'Catheter', refusing to change it even when told what it meant.
Mum knew of a Mrs O'nions and a Doctor D'eath. Nanna knew a Doctor Killem. And of course, there's the primate of the Philippines (is he still alive? I'm not sure...) called Cardinal Sin.
When I worked in a Childrens Hospital in Virginia, eons back, we had a kid named Famous Lay; another was named Fornication and of course there were the twins John Kennedy and Fitzgerald...but that was reasonable.
DH used to work with a girl, whose name was Oranjelo. Apparently her mother was eating orange jello when she had to decide on a name for the new baby.
Gill
The bestest dentist evah (except he's about to give me a root canal) is Dr. Fang.
Elizabeth
One of my school teacher friends had one kid named, I'll put it in three syllables so you can get the idea for pronunciation, Fe mal e, (pronounced ah) and another called Murine. They were both in the same class.
We have a dentist locally, Dr. Root.
I know a family who named the first girl Tamara. When the second one came along, they named her T'yestaday. The third was called T'night.
No, I am not kidding.
Linda
A friend of mine had an obstetrician called Dr. Scotum. Months later she figured out the name didn't have an R in it, even though she had called him that all through pregnancy and delivery. True story.
Pt in Illinois
Anne B Filler DDS lives down the street.
Used to be a bloke at the local dentist's surgery called Phil McCafferty. What's *really* funny about that is, I didn't get the pun in his name until *long* after the root canal and DH pointed it out to me. Duh!
Years ago in UK I often passed a sign for a lawyers' office. The names were Doolittle and Dally.
Joyce in RSA.
There is a small trailer court locally that had 1st, 2nd and 3rd as their street names. The powers that be said that wouldn't do and they had to have proper street names.
The owner renamed them, This Street, That Street and The Other Street.
Mavia
In our area it is necessary to have all "roads" named, for emergency services to find you.. We are rural, and often a house is way back off the road, with a lane going to it. My favorite is "My Drive Way".
Gillian
Don't forget we also had Drs. Pretty and Lovely - though I believe the latter retired recently.
Dr. Precious is still practicing. My daughter went to him many years ago.
I like Sarah's address in Truro...she lived on the Wrong Road!
Mavia
Rather like the CTV news reporter Phil Meighan (Me-in). (And a grandson or g-grand-son of one of our Canadian Prime Ministers).
MargW
A number of years ago we bought a German shorthair from a breeder in NJ. The kennel address was 1 Barker Road. :)
Joan
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required