Creative names

I have always been interested in strange names for people. You probably know some of the names celebrities have given to their children. Musician and composer Frank Zappa thought of some creative names for his children, Diva, Ahmet, Dweezil and Moon Unit. Sylvester Stallone, star of the ?Rocky? and ?Rambo? series, named his son Sage Moonblood. Actor Jason Lee of ?My Name is Earl? named his son Pilot Inspektor. My favorite one is comedian Penn Jillette, who named his daughter Moxie CrimeFighter.

I suppose that some of these people go by a nickname or a shortened version of their name. When I was a young kid, one of my friends went by the nickname Bobby. One day he took his report card home from school and he noticed that the name at the top of the card was ?Mahmoud,? a common name in his father?s native country of Lebanon but not so common in northwest Iowa. He asked his mother why his friends called him Bobby when that wasn?t the name on the card. From that day on, he insisted on being called by his real name. That was a brave thing to do, because young kids are not known for being kind to those who are different.

In the past few years, I?ve met young people with names I had never heard of before, or names with unusual spellings. For some reason or another, this trend did not catch on my family.

My parents took a rather conservative approach to naming their children. My parents are fond of TV personalities Andy Griffith and Andy Rooney, so they could have been the source of my name. My mother loves the movie ?The Sound of Music? so much that I have a hunch that my sister Julie was named after the movie?s star, Julie Andrews (although my mother claims this is not true). My youngest sister is named Mary, which is a common name on my dad?s side of the family (my father has a sister named Mary). I don?t have any proof of this, but I suspect that Julie Andrews? portrayal of ?Mary Poppins? made the name palatable to my mother.

My aunts and uncles chose very common names with common spellings for their children, by and large. A few exceptions are my cousins Krys and Mikel, both uncommon spellings, and my cousin, Grady, who is the only ?Grady? I know. On my mother?s side are John, Matthew, Anna, Halle, Brian, Sarah, Haley and Heather. My dad?s side is a little larger and has Collin, Ryan, Bobby, Courtney, Justin, Shannon, Megan, David, Lindsey, Jeff, Melissa, Katie, Ben, Joe, Jill and Maggie.

I have nothing against making new names for your children, although I think the celebrities mentioned earlier went overboard. Those names are not so much creative as they are comical. However, I will warn parents that there is a downside to picking an unusual name or picking a common name but giving it an unusual spelling. People will misspell the name, or mispronounce it, or perhaps they won?t believe it?s your child?s first name at all. I remember when I worked at a hall desk in the dorms and one of the residents asked to check out some sporting equipment. He told me his first name was ?Admiral.? I didn?t believe it until I saw it on his student ID.