Can I Just Talk About The Unique Name Trend?

Or, why my friend gave his kids very strange names.

I’m not going to lie, some of the names that are currently being used for new babies are awkward. One of my acquaintances, for example, was named something along the line of Moonlight Mushroom.*

She’s not alone. I’ve heard of kids named Pepsi, Marijuana, and even Big Baby. From strange spellings of traditional names (“Lesleigh”) to names like my own, the push for one-of-a-kind name has been going strong since the 90s.

When parents name their child, they should put a lot of thought into it. Your name is not just your name. It can open and close doors for your kid. My friend, for example, was turned away from a job because of his name.

I’ve had to use a different name when I was working in one sales team because they wanted to have names that “sounded classy,” and they were worried mine was a little too edgy.

Ever since the 1960s, having an unusual name became a badge of honor in many communities.

In the 1950s and the century prior, there were few things that were as bad as sticking out. America was a country that was all about conformity. Parents wanted their children to fit in.

As The Atlantic pointed out, this is no longer the case. Parents are now choosing unique names because they want their children to stand out:

“It was driven by a slew of broader shifts in daily life. As family sizes shrunk and kids stopped doing labor, Americans “started to fixate on the uniqueness of each child,” as the sociologist Philip Cohen has written, and “individuality emerged as a project — starting with naming — of creating an identity.” — Joe Pinsker, “The Age of the Unique Baby Name”

Today, the more unique the name, the more applauded it tends to be. I wouldn’t be shocked if the names parents chose were picked as a way to make their child more internet-searchable, too.

However, this trend has its roots in something far more serious than just “I want little Timmeigh to stand out…” and it comes with issues that “normal-named” parents might not recognize.

Having an unusual name can be cool, but it’s also a struggle.

As someone who grew up with an awkward name that was hard to pronounce, I know that being an owner of a unique name comes with a stigma. It’s not just being the only kid who can’t find a novelty plate with your name, ya know!

Simply put, there are a lot of people who make assumptions about your name. As a young adult, I often got a lot of rude or just strange remarks, including:

• “Oh, your parents were hippies, weren’t they?”
• “Is that your real name?”
• “No, let me see ID.”
• “I thought you were a different race.”
• “Sounds like a stripper name.”
• “Your name is Ossiana? Oof.”
• “*insert botched pronunciation as a backhanded insult*”

It was not fun a lot of the time. I like my name, but I’m not going to front. I spent the first 12 years of my life begging my parents to get a legal name change to Jade or Pat. My name was a source of bullying as a kid.

A 2021 study revealed that unique names, particularly Black-sounding names, have a stigma so strong, it can actually get you passed over for a job. This is doubly true for customer-facing roles.

The stigma has been on the decline, yes, but it’s still there. My name has been mistaken for being an African name before, and trust me, there have been moments where I have suspected that I was turned away from jobs because of it.

Names that are pronounced normally but have unusual spellings are particularly stigmatized.

Among Millennials, particularly white Millennials, I’ve noticed a big trend of naming children traditional names with very unusual spellings. For example, “Ashley” might become “Ashleigh” under this trope.

They even have a name for this kind of naming style. It’s “tragedeigh.” As in, it’s a tragic name. I’ll also be the first to point out that these types of names are often seen as the hallmark of modern white trash in certain circles.

How do I know? I’ve had people make comments like, “At least your name isn’t something like Braylyn.”

Ugh. I…

Yeah. I get it. Some of the names parents choose for their kids make me cringe, too. It hits a lot differently when you actually lived through what a Tragedeigh might live through.

A while back, my friend enlightened me about why he chose his son’s name.

A couple of years ago, my friend Brandon* had a kid. He was looking at names and decided upon one that was so bizarre, so strange, I actually begged him to reconsider for the sake of the kid.

It was something along the line of “Sake Bomb Chazzy Brick.”*

A conversation that ensued made me realize why he did what he did, and made me wonder whether or not people pegged the unique name trend’s roots correctly.

Let me give you a play-by-play of the conversation.

Me: “For the love of all that is holy, do not name your kid Sake Bomb Chazzy Brick.”

Brandon: “How about Lord Champagne?”

Me: “Brandon, I already am feeling bad for your kid. No Lord Spung, no Sake Bomb. Please! What is your obsession with these names, dude? I grew up with a weird name and it fucking sucked. Do you want your kid to be bullied?”

Brandon: “Ossiana, you are white, you wouldn’t get it.”

Me: “I have a weird name. I know what that kid will go through.”

Brandon: “No, you don’t. My name is Brandon Gomez*. Do you know why people in my community give kids strange names?”

Me: “Humor me.”

Brandon: “Because we get racially profiled and if someone else named Brandon commits a crime, they are likely to throw us both in jail. I ought to know, I spent two nights in jail because police thought I commit a crime across town. It took fingerprints and a cashier exonerating me for me to leave. A weird name prevents that from happening, and yes, that’s a real fear in our community.”

Me: “*opens mouth, closes it, pauses* So…Maybe Tawret or Blanche or Fleur if it’s a girl…Maybe Anaximander or Xenophon if it’s a boy?”

The conversation really sat with me and made me think about the Tragedeigh trend.

The mostly-white trend of unique spellings with regular pronunciations is something that always sat a little weird with me. I always felt like something was off about it.

I started to ask questions.

Is this trend a form of loose cultural appropriation, or is it just because the normal-named parents of today wished they could have a name like mine and couldn’t find one they liked? Is this a rebellion against conformity or are people picking up on the benefit of a strange name I never really considered?

I honestly still haven’t figured it out.

Our culture is in a very deep state of flux and it can be hard to figure out where to draw the line. I ended up choosing a more traditional name for my kid, but if you went the one-of-a-kind route? I guess I get it as long as it’s not something like Toilette, we really can’t judge.