I have this weird fascination with how people choose their children's names. It had been a latent obsession until I saw the show Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC and noticed the high percentage of kid pageant contestants who have "misspelled" names.
How can someone's name be misspelled?, you ask. It's their name; can't it be spelled however their mama chooses? Yes, of course, but most of these names are just otherwise normal names that have been spelled almost phonetically, which, to me, is misspelling.
A pageant mom probably won't name her daughter "Brittany." She'll name her "Bryttanee." A most recent example straight from a T&T episode is Sparkal Queenz. I swear, I did not make that up. And I am not the only one who has noticed this. One person who really dislikes this trend has a blog called "I Hate Your Kid's Name." It is hi-larious, but it does not tippy-toe around the subject.
Another way odd names have popped into my life is on school worksheets. I remember when the twins were still in elementary school, the politically correct compulsion to use as many multicultural names as possible got out of hand. Just trying to fill in the blanks on a vocabulary sheet was like trying to read a chapter in the Old Testament. The boys would get tripped up by these out-of-the-blue names like, "If Akbar has two apples and he gives one to Elodie, how many does he have left?" Dick and Jane must be too old school.
I doubt Japanese students who are kicking our butts in math are reading worksheets that say, “Madisyn has five shelves that can hold eight paint cans each. How many cans do the shelves hold in all?”
In full disclosure, I must admit that in second grade I tried to change the spelling of my name and signed all my school papers, "Jyll."
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