What’s up with Names? | Eastern North Carolina Now

WHAT'S UP WITH NAMES?
    Many in our society are infatuated with what we name ourselves. A "mature" adult who changes his name to "Bow Wow" (I did not make this one up) should not be surprised or take offense when people laugh at him.

    The sad part is we are not laughing. We say things like, "Dat's cool", "Whatever floats your boat" and "Everyone is entitled to do their own thing".

    What is even worse is modern "mature" adults are naming their newborn offspring using Name Creation Thinking that results in some strange monikers. They are taking well-known names and misspelling them and coming up with...

      •  Regena instead of Regina.

      •  Dawnn instead of Dawn.

      •  Martellus instead of Marcellus.

      •  Parisa instead of Paris.

    Some geniuses have taken to inserting an Apostrophe in the middle of names and coming up with the likes of, "Nu'Keese".

    We also have the holdover from ancient times where we try to keep alive Roman Names and come up with such gems as, "DeQuayvious".

    I saw an interview with the mother of a crime victim who had inserted a dash in the middle of her boy's name. It came out to something like, "Tai-ler". The interviewer asked mamma how was her boy's name pronounced. She looked down her nose at the ignorant questioner and said, "The dash is silent". (If the dash is silent, why is the dash there?)

    Many years ago President Reagan put his tongue into his cheek and wrote a commentary about the phenomena developing at the time for hyphenating names by combining the bride's and the groom's names into one new name...

      •  He noted that if this practice were to go on through just a few generations we might end up with a football player named ... Peter Smith-Halloran-Schwamm-Morningside-Lacarelli-Sherman-Bukowski-Krenwinkle-Roget.

      •  Can you imagine the difficulty this would have presented to John Madden if Peter Hyphenated was a running back for the Chicago Bears?

    I read an article a few years ago that told me that people were naming their children after automobiles. Here is a quote from this article... "There are kids named after cars: Corvette, Acura, Camry, Celica and Infiniti."

    It will be a sure sign that a modern mother-to-be went into labor in Aisle 5 at Walgreen's Drug Store if you see "Neutrogena" on her little fellow's soccer shirt.

    Would I kid u?
    Smartfella