Name That Wrong
October 4, 2016 I'm old.
I know this because my shoulder hurts right now and I want to tell absolutely everyone about it. Also, I don't like the rap music.
So when I hear of some unbearably trying-too-hard celebrity naming their kid Pirate* or Audio Science* or Banjo*, I get offended in a way that only we Americans are bored enough to get.
[*Actual celebrity kid names.]
For instance:
;)
;)
Are these names? Are they mistakes? The world may never know.
But by golly, we can assume the worst and get ticked off anyway.
;)
The only thing more confusing than the words are the decorations. Are those... targets?
;)
It must be heck figuring out which basket is hers.
;)
Funny, he doesn't look like a "Pin." More like a "Nougat" or "Flip Phone," am I right?
Thanks to Linda O., Evy C., Kaycee G., Mary G., & Rusti B., who will all now be known as "Betty." And you can call me Al.
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Reader Comments (76)
Well, looking at the background of that last picture I think we now know who ordered the mason jar cake from yesterday. 2 for 2, so sorry Pin.
Really nice cakes! I like the first one, that's really good, and the second one is really generous with the flowers.
I'd like to see the flowers on the Easter cake though.
" know this because my shoulder hurts right now and I want to tell absolutely everyone about it. Also, I don't like the rap music." I must find a way to work this into the conversation today. And maybe the rest of the week.
Cannot STAND stupid names for kids that are not people names. Though I've felt that way all my life so I can't say that it is a 'old' thing. Name your child something that is a name. For a person. A human being. They are going to have it all their life for cryin' out loud. (Okay, that was the 'old' talking)
“What's in a name? That which we call Freestyle
By any other name would taste as sweet
That Easter cake is one of the prettiest wrecks I've ever seen.
I never heard of this song. I never heard of the group that made it famous (?), but their name is ENSIFERUM so I felt it really belonged here.
Victory Song
On this fine occasion
A Birthday reception
Was held in the halls of our fair kingdom
To change designations
To change all names
Or maybe they’re correct, by God!
Freestyle woke up the baker man
With a banging on the bake’ry door
“I want a cake for Brother Pin!”
Just get it right, I ask no more
Spatula in hand they killed each and every cake
(I don’t mean that in a pos’tive way)
Victory songs simply have no place here
Though names don’t matter (ask Shakespeare)
Frosting is raining from their bags
As bakers “work” side by side
They’ve no talent
And their destiny is to wreck
I mean win. They're destiny is to win.
I think the "targets" are supposed to be turtles or tortoises.
Oh my Pin's cake is shiny.
And why is "Pin" having his birthday cake in the bathroom? Is that a new thing? I'm totally not on board with that.
Great chicken cake! I assume someone already stole the wings off.
"Easter" is a perfectly acceptable name, although it should properly be spelled "Eostre" with a dingbat over the E. I think. It's the name of the goddess of Spring. Sort of like naming your girl "May" or "June". And ain't the writing pretty?
There was a girl named Sparkle in my son's playgroup many years ago. Maybe it was her cake!! She was a sweet thing.
Names; love'em or hate'em. I'm thinkin' these kids are going to all grow up and need some major therapy. It's a good thing their parents have $$$$$$. Hopefully they'll STILL have $$$$$$$$$ when their kid starts attending some very expensive, intensive therapy sessions!
I grew up in a small town in Connecticut and there was a kid named "Derfy" - it was "Fred" (dear old dad's name) spelled backwards. There were also a set of twins named "Chester + Lester" No lie! What are the parents thinking?
I like my child to have a unique name,
Something to bring ‘em a measure of fame,
To make ‘em stand out when in a crowd,
(‘Specially if their name was said aloud.)
I named some of ‘em from where they was begot,
(In my younger days I was pretty hot.)
My older twins are Teeter and Totter,
Mary Go ‘Round is my other daughter.
Another one we call Third Base –
It was both activity and the place.
The first kid was kinda hard to conceive,
Weren’t gonna have one, I did believe,
But after the doctors did examine ya,
We said “Hello” to our number one, Stamina.
Joybeth - The goddess is Ishtar (pronounced "Easter").
Adrien - That's a kitchen. With very bathroom-like appointments, but it IS a kitchen.
On another note, shiny poultry cakes are never appropriate. NEVER.
Although the cakes are just mistakes, some names really do make me wonder about this... O_o
Maybe Sparkle is a stripper????
I went to high school with a girl named Sparkle. This was way back before "unusual" names were popular.
Pin is in the kitchen. You can see the stove with the turkey pan on top at the very far right side of the frame. And there's dish soap and the Ball jar full of utensils on the sink. Sorry if I'm being too literal -- I blame the cold medications.
Also, one of the elderly ladies in my mom's assisted living facility is named Easter. Though it's also possible this cake is supposed to be a "happy Easter birthday" (two concurrent celebrations) cake.
Someone lubed the heck out of that turkey! I don't even want to know why.
One can only hope the parents of Pin did not give him the unfortunate middle name of Head...
I think the third one takes the cake (sorry): Birthay spelled wrong, "quote marks," unrecognizable decorations, and sooo much white space.
On the " happy birthday Easter", it reminded me of something that used to be customary in my family until the 70s or so. All the children were named either after their parents or according to the correspondent festivity or Saint to the day they were born. So if you were born on Christmas Day, you'd be named the same but in Spanish: Navidad or Natividad. But a really unlucky day to be born was January 1st, the day dedicated to Jesus' Circumcision... Yes there was a poor guy named that, and the Government official in charge of birth certificates didn't argue those name choices because they were in the Catholic calendar.
Pin is happy!
Want to know why?
He just decided what he wants to be when he grows up!
....Want to know WHAT?
A gynocologist.
=^-.-^=
My job allows me to see a lot of kids' names. And boy do I ever see some names. I can confirm that Sparkle is a name somewhere in the US, although whether the cake above is directed at such a child, I cannot say. I won't get into *too* many specifics, but I will say that my favorite I've seen so far is a poor child named after a condiment that is created from a combo of a certain type of mustard and mayo.
I was in a queue at the post office last year, and the ladies behind the counter were making a fuss of a young mum with her baby. "Isn't she lovey, what's her name" one asked. To which the reply was "Rainbow Sparkles" There was a long silence - "How.......unusual" said one of the ladies, and moved to serve the next customer. Never heard a queue fall silent so quickly
I like to explore old cemeteries. In my hometown there is a grave of a woman named Easter. I doubt the 'wreck' is for her because she is no longer with us.
I have a niece named Easten. I could totally see some baker turning it into Easter. LOL
My mother almost named me Starlette, so that would have been fun. Luckliy she was worried that I wouldn't be able to spell my name - so she made it Kim. Yep not Kimberly, or Kimberley, but Kim, so I wouldn't be confused. True story.
"Also, I don't like the rap music." needs to be changed to, "Also, I don't like the rap music (unless it's Hamilton)."
Because let's be honest, Hamilton is the only rap we know.
As for names, I have a lot of family and friends that work in schools. My favorite so far was one of my friend's students a few years back: Abcde. No joke. It was pronounced "Ab-cid-ea."
I can't help but wonder if they meant "Freestyle" as the cake design; and the beautiful cake is for "Esther" not "Easter"?
Jen, I know I'm old because my not-quite-14-year-olds keep telling me so. Eldest's school pictures came back and, rather than smiling as she usually does, she has one side of her mouth lifted in a smirk. We think this demonstrates the rightful contempt she has for all adults.
As for unusual names, I've got you all beat. I grew up in an area where many of the 60's flower children eventually settled & names like "Grey Owl", "Treebeard" and "Spotted Fawn" were not uncommon (these were all actual people that I knew). Unfortunately, they also got to name their children, and I suspect some will require therapy. Crow-Boy would hit you if you called him anything but "C.B." & Tail was TOUGH (I imagine he had to be). But my favorite was always Sunshine-On-Dewdrops-Makes-Rainbows. Can you imagine writing THAT on your driver's license?
Dweezil Zappa is 47 years old, now. Just a head's up on the "old thing."
BTW, Dweezil was not given that name at birth; he's named after one of his mother's toes...
From the Wiki:
Dweezil's registered birth name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa. The hospital at which he was born refused to register him under the name Dweezil, so Frank listed the names of several musician friends. "Dweezil" was a nickname coined by Frank for an oddly-curled pinky-toe of Gail's. At the age of five years, Dweezil learned that his legal name was different, and he insisted on having his nickname become his legal name. Gail and Frank hired an attorney and soon the name Dweezil was official.
As for Zappa's other kids, you can look up "Moon Unit" and "Diva" for yourself. "Ahmet" is a fairly common name; no idea how that got in there.
As a teacher, I've seen my share of groan-worthy names over the years.
Now I'm just old and crabby. Dang kids -- get off my lawn!
I read a post last night about stupid things people have named their kids. I will just say right here and now that I would be HAPPY to make wedding cakes for gay couples, Satanists, Martians, anybody who needs a cake to celebrate their special day. It's All Good! However, when it comes to writing messages I will write the sentiment such as "Happy Birthday" (even "Happy Birthay" like on the Victory Song cake above), "Best Wishes", etc. but I will NOT write the names: Vagina, Klamydia (different spelling but pronounced the same), Placenta, etc....I just CAN'T! It must be some crazy pain-giving-birth/drug interaction when a nurse can say the word "placenta" and the mother says "That's a pretty name!...I'm going to name my daughter that!"
Nothing like getting a Paul Simon song stuck in my head for the rest of the day
I have been teaching for 21 years. I can share with you some truly---ummmm---- interesting names. Some are family names that probably should have stayed in the past. Some, are, as I was firmly corrected one year, mis- prounced. Apparently, Hogg is prounced with a long vowel "o" and not short vowel "o". On a couple of occasions names are family nick names. I had a young man named Trip. Why? He was third generation of the same name and Grandpa Sr started calling him Triplet- Number 3- Trip. Sometimes people are truly inspired by the great literature or myths they read. Sometimes, this can be beautiful. Some names are beautiful ethnic names that can be difficult to translate into English like the beautiful Vietnamese names of Phuc Huu and Nga Nga or the African name O'Tongi or Gaelic names like Domhnall prounced Donald. But, truly I believe sometimes parents just want to mess with the teachers' minds. La-a please raise your hand. It's not pronounced the way it was written. This is a famous case in Chicago.
I can't tell if those are actual names, typos, or nicknames for pon artists!
Names. No matter what our parents call us, we won't like it, but it is easy enough to change.
I used to work for The Evil Insurance Company, and like Shay, I've seen some real winners. Tressie Belinda, Gloria Monday, Tinkerbell, and a little old lady who got stuck with Vesta Beulah. The Squire has an uncle named Alpha Omega, and he was NOT an only child!
@Shay Are you saying... do you mean... somewhere out there is a human child named... Tartar Sauce?!?!?!
No one is gonna comment on "Birthday" being misspelled on the Victory Song cake???
When I worked at Baskin Robbins, we had someone call in for a cake with the greeting "Happy Birthday Rainbow in the Sky" written on it. There is a huge Chinese population where I live, so I couldn't figure out whether she wanted a Rainbow on a blue cake with the words "Happy Birthday," or it the name really translated directly as "Rainbow in the Sky," Turned out to be the latter, which I only found out after calling the customer. GOod thing I checked.
Too bad these cakes were ruined by misspelling the names of poor Freastiyell, Spark'L!, Viktree Songg, E-ster, Pinnnnn. No young person the would use traditional spelling for a name!
"Best" I've ever heard- Shadynasty. Pronounced Sha Dynasty but no hyphen, space, capital to make the break 😢
I remember one name from a book on BAD NAMES (I can't remember the actual title), which was confirmed by a West Virginia census of 1907.
He was a coal miner named Cinderella.
Sparkle Plenty has been a popular supporting character in the Dick Tracy comic strip since 1947. I gather that more than a few parents named their daughters after her.
As for "Victory Song" -- maybe she's River Song from a alternate timeline?
@Hairfish - you forgot that Ahmet's middle name is not Rodin like the painter, but Rodan like the rubber-suit monster. ;-)
Also, Jen's list of celebrity kid names is incomplete without Moxie Crimefighter Jillette.
So you were complaining about a celebrity baby named Banjo. This is Rachel Griffiths child's name right? Well she is Australian. And every good Australian knows about the famous poet/Author/ journalist named A.B "Banjo" Paterson, who lived from 1864-1941. You may have heard of some of his works including Waltzing Matilda and The Man from Snowy River. I would hazard a guess that this child was named after him.
Banjo Patterson was a very famous Australian poet in the 1800's (he wrote The Man from Snowy River and Waltzing Matilda amongst others) so Rachel Griffiths, an Aussie actress, actually had a good reason to name her child Banjo.
Hollendaise? There's a poor child named Hollendaise out there?!