The Cottage Smallholder

You're all intrigued by the thread title, eh?

My lovely born again happy clappy newly wed step sister has just dropped her first sprog*

Yay, all is good, wonderous miracle of life, heavens be praised and all that.

But then she had to go and spoil it all by calling it something stupid. Why do people do this? Is there latent resentment there they're unaware of? "you distended my stomach, kicked me repeatedly in the bladder and made me poop infront of my husband while I was delivering you. you shall suffer for it!"

This poor little girl is doomed to walk the earth with the given name of Favour Kufre Umoh. Kufre is her father's name (and he doesn't like it, he prefers to be known by his surname, Umoh).

Now I appreciate that with parents from two different cultures there is a desire to reflect both. This is all well and good. But Favour isn't even a Nigerian name. It's a frilly bag of sugared almonds that goes with a place setting at a wedding, or lending a mate a fiver.

In stark contrast, a good friend from uni and his missus have also recently spawned. His name is Marijan (his family are Polish, his full name is Marijan Benedict Leopold Maximilian Hubert Von Stauffer, he is the Graf Von Stauffenburg, his father is a Count. How cool is that?) and his wife's name is Yasodhara (She's Sri Lankan). Their baby girl is called Anurhada, which means stream of blessings. I think this is beautiful (and the kid can be called Ana for short, which will be less likely to have her ruthlessly mocked in a playground).

But Favour? You can't shorten that to anything useful. And the jokes that teenage boys in Bristol may make don't bear thinking about. Actually maybe it could be shorted to Fay. Fay is an alright name I guess, though has some slightly wet connotations in an archaic understanding.

I'm rambling now.

What other names are you aware of that are just plain crueland unusual?  Where's the line between different-good and different-bad?

*I don't get that sentimental about babies, for the first 18 months or so they mostly all look the same, and the forst 5 or so years their conversation is generally rubbish. They only really get interesting when they can join me in the pub. I'm aware that other people feel differently. but this is my thread, so acceptable terms for offspring shall include spawn, sprog, rugrat and "crying pooping puking miracle".