as far as the famous ppl remark.....when i was a freshman in alabama, i went to school with a michael jordan.....and when i moved to lexington, i went to school with a zach morris. odd times....

i also think it's funny how ppl will/will not name their child a name simply based on a person they knew and liked/disliked. for instance, my hating the name crystal has nothing to do with the name, but the person i knew with that name. same goes for brad....i used to think it was a hot boy's name, now i'm like, "ick".....and i used to think it was stupid for ppl to name their kids after emotions like "love" or "happy" or something. but my best best friend sybil's middle name is happy, and so will my first daughter's middle name be. :)

and just so you all know, i was thisclose to being monica EARLE, and my sister was almost sara leah......YIKES. thanks, ma! ;)

This is actually a lot more common than I thought it was. My friend was telling me about meeting a woman with a new baby girl and they named the girl Sh*thead.
There was a guy in my junior high where his first name was his last name, minus an "ey."
I would not name my child Jennifer or Jason. Jennifer is my name and I know and have had way too much bad luck with Jasons.

Speaking of famous people, I went to summer camp with an Elizabeth Taylor

By the way, my name is Tracy and my younger sister is named Casey. I love my parents dearly, but will never understand what the he** they were thinking! Luckily, she's 6 years younger than me so we were never at the same school at the same time.

Know what I've really noticed lately? Tracy seems to be a very popular name for African American males. I've probably seen a half dozen in the past month alone. I wonder if this is a new phenomenon or if I just never noticed it before?


PS CP2K, I LOVE your name! It's beautiful and elegant.

Aww...thanks darlin'! There was a time (at about age 25) that I considered changing it, such was my level of being "fed up"!

Me too! If I had decided to have kids, I wanted them to all have E names and Emma was my girl's name. Now, I'm screwed.

Was it "Class" by Paul Fussell? I had to read that book for a Sociology class back in the day. I don't remember names in that one, but it sounds about right.

In the NYTimes a few months ago, there was an article about the link between socioeconomics, race, and name choices.

As for me, I can't stand "stripper" names: Tiffany, Crystal, Brandi, Kayla, Staci. But, since Mini-Munchkins are 10 years away (if at all), I have a while to think. I imagine I'll stick with traditional names. Nothing ending in -isha, -ita, or -ika for me!

Names Mr. Adrienne and I will not name our children:

Steve (my ex--the only ex I hate)
Misty (my hubby's ex--the only ex HE hates)
Wilma (it WAS my middle name. The second I got married, I high-tailed it down to the SSA and legally changed it. If I hear ONE more Fred Flintstone imitation, so help me........)
Eugene (This is a name that will get a child beaten up on the playground at recess.)

My family tree goes back a LOOOOOONG way. (Think 1500 years long). You can find a lot of "oddball" names like Patience, Prudence, Mercy, Love, etc etc. Lots of Berthas, Beatrices, Alices, and don't EVEN get me started on some of the Welsh names.

Given our family name (Duncan) we might go with something ethnically Scottish or Norman, but still within the "mainstream".

Adrienne
(YES, I've seen "Rocky", dammit!)
:p

I went to school with some people who had ... let's just say, poorly chosen names. Two that spring to mind are Fruk Woo and Lik Mui. Then there was the Jewish guy named Christian...

I will have to select my hypothetical future children's names very carefully, as my last name closely resembles alphabet soup :p and doesn't play nicely with most common first names. And I don't like the whole unusual-spelling thing. I gotta think...

Was Bakewell a family name for her? I absolutely need to know!!

I know a girl whose last name was Snow and was called Snowy - I always thought it was sooo cute!

I think it's fairly frustrating, though, for those who want to use a family name even though it's become popular. For example: my sister and her husband just had a little girl last May and they named her Emma Elizabeth after their grandmas and her husband's mother. Almost everyone in our family knew if it was a girl it would be named Emma because both she and her husband had a grandma named Emma. And, in the past few years, Emma has seen a sudden increase in popularity.

That being said, I will probably stick to more old-fashioned, classic names for whatever children Mr. ISUKappa and I have, and, if possible, use some famiy names somewhere in the fold (though not our last names, I would never curse our kids with the long, German surnames we were blessed with). And I don't mind names that can be shortened as long as it's not too cutesy--they always have the option of going back to the long name as they get older.

Speaking of last names, it used to be fairly common for boys to take their mother's maiden names. Today, depending on what mom's maiden name is, could cause him to be beat up in school. We may all think Colin Firth's Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice is WONDERFUL, but imagine how a kid named Fitzwilliam'll be treated today!

I was going to say the same thing about Stripper names!... I don't think Tiffany or Stacy qualify, but that's just me. Anything that is more like a an object than a name qualifies: Jade, Daisy, Jasmine...flower names.

Also the names Michaela, Alexandra, Corky, Quentin, anything off the simpsons.

I love that book/movie, so much so that I thought of using the name Darcy somewhere along the line, if I ever had kids. That's a big if, but it's out there :)

Tiffany is if it's spelled with a "i," like Tiffani. Or Tyffyny. Tyffani.