Bad Names

I’m reading a book called, “Bad Baby Names” by Michael Sherrod. The authors researched U.S. census data from 1790 – 1930 and the book lists an interesting variety of really bad names coming from this data. Here are a few:

• Cholera Peace (born in 1830)
• Loser Louis
• Tuna N. Fish
• Sugar Cane
• Ima Nutt
• Angel Gabriel
• Warren Peace
• Jack Lantern

I’ve read other books about people with interesting names. In the book, “Freakonomics,” Steven Levitt describes people with names like Temptress, Amcher (named after the Albany Medical Center Hospital ER), and Loser Lane. And I have personally met some people with interesting names such as, Chuck Wood and Gil Trout.

There have been studies suggesting predictive powers of bad names; that people with “bad” names have a higher propensity to end up with “bad” lives. To me, that’s like saying people who take the elevator instead of walking the stairs have a higher propensity of being fat; there’s much more to it than that. And as Levitt surmises, “an overwhelming number of parents use a name to signal their own expectations of how successful their children will be.” As I’ve said before, the name says more about the parent than it does the child.

So, with that said, there really aren’t any “bad” names; just different. Do you know anyone with interesting names?  If so, I’d love to hear about them!