My first name is Toke. It's an old Nordic name which is an abbreviation for the name "Thorkild", but ALSO can mean "fool" or "idiot". Luckily it's an extremely rare name (about 1000 people worldwide having the name) so almost no-one knows what it means - but I have certainly been bullied at the few occasions people found out. Also, on a general note to the trope, I'm certainly not fond of people giving their children some unique name just for the sake of it being unique. If it just sounds good to the children, it shouldn't matter the slightest if the name is rare and common. Sadly, my parents just wanted to name me the most unique and rare name they could find and didn't care about anything else.

I have a nephew who unfortunately was given the name "Little Dude" by my scatter-brained cousin. Any serious conversations about the kid are made utterly Narmtastic.

So, my first name is Gray. Three strikes: One, it's a **** ing ''color''! Two, I was apparently named after a ''lawyer''. And three, it's ''one frickin letter'' away from "gay". WHAT THE HELL WERE MY PARENTS THINKING?

Gray is not ''that'' bad, especially if you're from an area that spells the color "grey." After all, some people get named after flowers, or even ''months of the year''. And "named after a lawyer"? Plenty of first names have been invented by giving a kid someone else's last name. ''Any''thing that ends with "-son," for example. "Only one frickin' letter away from 'gay'?" So's Gary, which is a perfectly normal name. At least you're not named Richard, because the nickname for that ''is'' "Dick."

A man named Gray--who in fact went by that name by choice--was for a time governor of California. Of course, he was seen as having done a bad job, and was recalled and replaced by The Governator, but that's another matter entirely.

I knew a guy named Gray when I was at college. And a dude named Ashley.

At Reiko-chan's school, there's a boy (7th or 8th grade, I think) ''and'' a girl (9th grade, and ''in my class'') named Ashley.

Actually, Ashley was commonly a boys name until around the 1950'2. So maybe his parents are old school.

This troper, having gray as his favorite color, thinks your name is ''awesome''.

Your name isn't as bad as you think. There are many names that are also colours (Violet, Scarlet, etc.). Also, what's wrong with lawyers? And I hope you're joking about the third strike.

This troper's sister was named Majenta, which would have been fine, however our last name is brown.

This troper once had to process a passport application for a newborn whose parents had kindly named him ''Stan The Man''. Not only that but 'The' was his ''middle'' name.

This troper knows a guy that knows a guy named Matthew Tress. If you don't get it, "Matt" is short for "Matthew".

That should probably go under PunnyName.

A kid of of this troper's sister's friend is named Jupiter. Thankfully it's just his 2nd name, and is first name is an unusual one.

This soon-to-be-unemployed troper is leaving a job as a clerk for the Board of Elections, and you would not believe the names I encounter, verified names of actual, registered voters. For example, just today I learned there were four people registered in my city with the first name "Tsunami", and one woman named "Mother Cross." I did check, and "Mother" isn't her job (ie, nun or cloister) it's her actual name. Oh, and several women with the first name "Girlee."

This Troper knows a guy named Mary. Who is married to a girl named Mary.

Mary married Mary?

They must be quite merry.

A guy named Mary is not the worst thing I've heard of. There was a marshal of France named Anne. Anne de Montmorency. A man with a nice beard, by the way. His godmother was Anne of Brittany, and she insisted a goddamned lot.

Whatever would be bad about that?

I've heard some strange ones: #QUOTE# Three sisters were named Sunny, Stormy, and Windy. #QUOTE# A woman liked the sound of "fih-MAH-lee", but her daughter's name was spelled Female. #QUOTE# Twin boys were named after (somewhat mispronounced) flavors of ''Jell-O.'' #QUOTE# An immigrant Chinese couple decided to name their daughter with what they thought was the most beautiful-sounding word in the English language: Diarrhea. (Collected from ''Reader's Digest'')

Old jokes, but a national phone directory a few years ago did turn up a few Nosmo Kings...

This troper's newborn second cousin is called Reef. Seriously.

...like in the ocean.

This troper volunteered in a primary school in a rather rough area of London, where many of the kids had unfortunate "chavvy" names. The worst she encountered was a boy named Kingarthur (sic) - did he have siblings named Lancelot and Guinevere? One of her friends was on the same volunteering scheme at another school, and had a child in the class called "Sequin." What were these parents thinking?

I was friends in high school with a guy who had the first name Boner Jones. Everyone called him B.J.

Is that really an improvement?

This troper knew a kid whose name was Jack. Doesn't sound too unfortunate - until you met his little sister Jill.

Taken from the blog mentioned on the main page--apparently someone was ''actually'' willing to name their kid "Enobi". I only pray that they didn't go through with it.

I have a cousin named Xayden[i think that was how it was spelled], and my name would have been--had I been a boy--Edward VanHalen [last name here]. And my dad jokes about how he wanted to name me EDWINA. Sob. So glad I got Valerie. So, So, So glad. [Guess what my dad's favorite band is?]

The Monkeys?

I think you mean the ''Monkees''.

Van Halen, perhaps?

This troper lists this as the primary reason he should never have children-- twins run in his family, and he swears up and down that if fraternal twins came about, they'd be named Lilith and Lucifer. ... his brother, on the other hand, wants to name kids Scheherazade and Juliet, so there you go.

I have a friend with the last name of Walker. Had she been born a boy, her parents would have named her Luke, middle name Sky. No joke.

I had an art teacher who actually named their kid this. Of course, it was totally okay because their last name was spelled ''Skye''.

I know someone named Shithead. Pronounced shu-THADE. I also know a L-a, pronounced la-DASH-uh. Yes folks, a phonetic hyphen. I thought both Shithead and L-a were urban legends until I met them. No they are not related. If they were...

This troper is friends with a teacher. In addition to most of the normal names was one similar to the first above. The only difference was it was pronouced sha-HEED.

There's also Asshole, pronounced uh-SHOW-lee.

I never met the child, so I have no way of verifying this, but I have a co-worker who, at her old job, met a child named Abcde, pronounced Ab-suh-dee.

This troper's cousin named her child "Nadir". He has hoped from the second he heard the name that none of the child's future classmates ever realizes that the word means "lowest point". That name makes the poor kid seem unwanted.

It means "rare" in Hebrew. You can tell them that. I met a guy named that who was a prick, and told him (in Hebrew) that I thought people as stupid as him didn't exist, but it turns out they were just rare. And then I got beaten up because of the pun. Puns are bad.

It's not that bad, meaning wise. It's also the astronomical term for the point in the sky directly across from the zenith (the point overhead).

I know a woman who named three of her children August, April and July. That's okay, those are actual names. She also planned to call her fourth child 'June', but it turned out to be a boy, so now he's stuck with the name 'October'. Poor, poor kid. I also knew an Israeli girl whose first name was 'Lilly'... and her surname is 'Li'. And another one whose full name is 'Agar Tal', which means Vase.

July is an actual name?

Introducing yourself would go like this, I imagine: "It's "Julie", with a 'y'."

Chinese immigrants choose English names for themselves, which can get weird. I heard of one called ''Beethoven Chi''.

Beethoven's not actually English. Similarly, my Chinese classmate's youngest brother was born in the Netherlands, so his parents wanted to give him a Dutch name which they could also write in their own language. They called him Sean (Shi Ang). Which likewise isn't a Dutch name.

I went to junior high with a kid who went by Rocky Brook. That's not so bad, but it turns out it was a self-chosen nickname. His real first name was ''Babbling.''

This troper (who was "blessed" with a misspelled German name which nobody seems to know how to pronounce) has threatened more than once to have sons and name them Laertes, Montague, and Capulet. They would, of course, be given the nicknames Larry, Moe, and Curly.

This troper has a second cousin called Lettuce and another one called Field. My mum wanted to name me Jacobina but thankfully she was talked out of that.

Seriously? Not Lettice? Her parents are either not very good at researching spelling, or have a horrible, ''cruel'' sense of humor. Or his parents have a horrible, ''very'' cruel sense of humor.

Or they're ''TokyoMewMew'' fans.

I wonder if Lettuce (person, not character) happens to know anyone called Pudding, Mint or Strawberry... Mew Mew Lettuce, METAMORPHOSE!

My mother claims to know a man with the surname Schmidt, who changed his first name to Arenew. His precise reasoning for this was that "when everyone arrives in [our state], they ''are new''" (and no, he wouldn't explain further.) But that's not the worst part. The worst part is that he named his son Brown Schmidt. He didn't even have the decency to spell it as Braun. (I've also, under unrelated circumstances, met a fellow with the first name Duke and the last name Hardcastle, but that might go under {{Awesome McCoolname}}.)

My flatmate has, apart from completely normal Swedish names, "Peace" in Vietnamese (Hoah Binh) as a middle-name.

I get how the Vietnamese + Swedish makes no sense, but on its own, that's a beautiful middle name.

This troper knew a Mileidy (the parents were trying for Milady but didn't know how the hell it was written)

This troper has a friend who has a cousin named SG-1}} Teal'k Aladdin Tiberius Anderson. Yes, they misspelled Teal'c.

This troper has a friend whose parents named her Wiley after Wile E. Coyote.

While working at a Michelin plant in France, some friends of This Troper's parents considered naming their new daughter Michelle. Last name: Lynn. Fortunately they decided against it.

This Troper narrowly avoided being named after his uncle Peter, which would have made his initials "PP". Thankfully, his parents realized that beforehand and went with Scott instead.

Is your last name Parker by any chance?

Actually, there are a lot of Peters whose last names start with a "P". This Troper's brother for example. No one ever picked up on the PP thing, but considering that his middle name started with a "J" he did get called pajama in elementary school.

This troper's real name is With The Wind}} Ashleigh. Had I had a little sister, her name would have been Name}} Jordan. It makes me wonder if my parents really just wanted sons (I do have four brothers).

One of my cousins has a friend whose hippie parents named her Silvery Blue. I also went to school with a Krystal Stoner.

One my my friends had a husband who wanted to name his kids Snake-eyes and Stormshadow. SanityPrevailed.

This Troper was mildly amused by a boy whose surname was 'Hiscock', but knew it wasn't this trope as it was a surname and couldn't be changed. That was when I found out his brother's name is 'Alec'. Say it outloud and you'll see what I mean.

Before his parents decided on an actual name for him, my stepfather was referred to as Scruffy.

This troper's little brother came home from the hospital with a birth certificate reading "Baby Boy (Last Name)" Fortunately, he has a real name now.

This troper has encountered girls with the names of: Parsley Sauce, Little Mother (it was her first name), Duck Pond (several), Pineapple, Rite Noww... no kidding.

Wow. Reading this page almost makes my name ("Ez") seem normal. Even with my last name ("Day"). No middle. In spite of all the "Are you having an Ez Day?" jokes, I'm actually glad for it.

I have a cousin named Winter. Another cousin named Willow. Also, I once met a woman whose name was, hand-to-God, ''Starshine.'' I'm still not sure if that's a cute name, considering her parents were hippies, or just absurd.

After having read a fanfic in which Severus thinks that there aren't enough Mildreds in the world, my best friend tried to convince me to name ''all'' my children Mildred. She was serious.

I know of a kid named Texaz. Combined with a common Swedish surname, that becomes quite awkward.

I also heard about triplets named Knatte, Fnatte and Tjatte. That's the Swedish names for Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, except that they sound more ridiculous in Swedish. ''Thankfully'' that is only their middle names.

This Troper Has a friend that was almosy called Flacko, after a charater or something (so she says) luckly her parents decided agaist it.

I have a friend named Sun Clam, no joke. he says his parents must have been hippies or something...I also know a guy named ABCDE (pronounced ab-sea-dee).

This troper's mother has the misfortune to be named Anne Robinson and now can't tell anyone her name without having that damn catchphrase mentioned. As if "Here's to you, Mrs Robinson" wasn't bad enough...

This troper also once came across the passport of a child whose parents had unfortunately decided to name him "Stan The Man". Yes, his middle name was "The".

My mom, aunt and grandmother literally knew three kids named Lemonjello, Orangejello, and Female. Yeah.

My mom told me of a girl she knew in school. Her last name was Cianci. Her parents, for some insane reason, decided to name her Nancy Anne. String it all together and imagine it being sung endlessly across a playground.

This troper is from an area with a lot of (phonetic) Fehmalehs and Malehs. This is due to not knowing what to name the child and letting the hospital generic name stick. Female and Male.

This troper knows someone with the name Gus. Gus Gaydick, same spelling and all.

I have only heard of this person, but there is a person who's name is spelled "La-a". And no, her name's not pronounced "La,a", it's pronounced "LADASHA"!!!

This troper knew two high school kids by the name of Mama and Papa, who were sister and brother.

My family is actually quite familiar with a guy named Mike Hunt. You'd think he would at least go by Michael or something, but no.

This troper is stuck with the name Felix, which wouldn't be too bad, if my parents hadn't deliberately chosen it as a synonym for gay. I tend not to raise that particular translation- "lucky" is less embarrassing, but even without knowing etymologies... put it this way, ''The Entertainer'' is something of a BerserkButton for this troper, as are catfood jokes. To make it worse, my family has a tradition of middle initials (similar to the Harold S Truman example on the main page), although at least I got one of the cool letters. No, I will not share it on the internet, as it (and my given name) are not a particularly common combination.

All that said, this troper knows what he'd want his first son to be called: Guillaume. Yes, that could come under this trope, but it has so many possible diminutives he could choose to be known by: Guy, Gwil, William, Bill &c.

I once met with somebody who had been named Tangela (TAN-ge-la). I don't think she was young enough to be named after tan-GLE-la though.

This troper's old babysitter (and friend) is named Raine Bowe. She (troper) is also friends with two twins named Roxxi and Foxxi. Now, Roxxi wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the twins' last name: Striper. She also knew a boy named Keila. He went by Kai, which is a unisex name.

There was a girl in my class who was stuck with the unfortunate name Arthur. The teasing stopped when she came to a school dressup day in completely self-aware Saber cosplay.

This troper went to school with a girl whose parents were hippies. While at school, she created a new, "normal-sounding" name for herself and insisted everyone call her by it. We never found out what her real name was, but she had two sisters named Crystal Rainbow and, I am not kidding here, Aurora Borealis. Also, my friend met a girl in her church group whose first name was Patience. Her middle name was Is-A-Gift-From-God. ''Ouch.''

This troper's best friend's middle name is "Chalet." As in "ski lodge."

This troper once met a man who was a "victim of circumstance" case. He was the pastor of a church that my college choir visited one year on our annual tour, and his first name was Kermit. When he introduced himself to us, he got all the expected snickers ("Hi-ho!", etc.). He said, "Yeah, yeah, get it all out of your system. I was born long before TheMuppets came out; my parents had no way of knowing there was going to be a frog." Very nice guy, though.

This other troper has a friend whose grandma is in a similar situation; her name is "Gay"

Since I don't particularly give a damn if someone knows my first name as you could probably google my account name and connect it to my full name anyway, my first name is Galen. Technically a perfectly legitimate name with roots dating back thousands of years, with its awesome pronunciation (GAY-len) I got no end of shit for it for 'years' and yet my parents refuse to acknowledge the fact it might have been better to go with a more common name.

This Troper is not against naming your children after places, that said she feels it can be taken too far. There is a man on the south shore of Massachusetts who has named his two boys Boston and Fenway, and he plans on having at least one more kid, who if a boy will be Charles if a girl will be Garden. I pity them.

A literal example - This troper went to some sort of City Hall (I forget what it actually was, but it was government related) while in scouts, and we asked the guy there the weirdest story for anybody who's walked in with legal reason. His story was "A kid and his mother walked in and he wanted to legally change his name. Well, for whatever reason, he requested his name be changed to "Dude", and his mother thought that was such a ''lovely'' idea."

This Troper's cousin works at a hospital. She told me about several unfortunate baby names she had seen, such as brothers named Tarzan and Tarantula.

This troper's friend has mom and stepdad named Jeff and Tracy. Quite normal, you'd think, except Jeff is his mom and Tracy is his stepdad.

This troper works at a photography studio that does the majority of elementary/high school pictures in the area (and also in other areas, which leads to discussion of which city has the weirdest kid names) and has come across 'normal' names spelled ten different ways, as well as 'Indy Jones' and 'Snow White' (First and last names, in the same class as each other). Another memorable example, which was passed around the entire studio while the poor kids' pictures were in processing: identical twin boys (in the first grade) with long, complicated unique names... which were identical except for one letter, because halfway through Kid 1's name there was an S, and halfway through Kid 2's name the S was a Z instead.

This troper has a culture-difference-induced variation. One of my Swedish classmates here in England is named Fanny. Other Swedes in my class indicate that this is not a terribly unusual or embarrassing name. When I first met her, I had a moment of Who Names Their Kid Fanny, since in the US 'fanny' refers to the butt. This got even worse when this troper later found out that in England, 'fanny' is fairly rude slang for vagina. (Fanny has applied to English universities not as Fanny Caroline (Caroline being her middle name), but as Caroline Fanny to try and avoid this.)

In South-Eastern France, Fanny is a relatively common name too. This troper knows several.

"Jessie Blue Law". Can't let a kid grow up and pick her own porn name?

My 6th grade teacher told us that he once had a girl named Vitali in his class, and a boy with the last name Vitale. He joked that if they got married, she'd be Vitali Vitale.

My grandfather's name was Harold Chaim. Not so weird until you find out that his name was changed to Harold when he immigrated to America. His real full name is Chaim Chaim.

My aunt's last name is Ben, and she had twins. I suggest Ben for the boy and Mercedes for the girl (Ben Ben, Mercedes Ben), but luckily for them, I was ignored.

My mother once knew someone named Richard Chop, who always shortened his first name to 'Dick'. Then she told me that he was the doctor that did my dad's vasectomy. Talk about a punny name.

This troper's first name is Summer, which I don't mind, until people think of all the things that rhyme with Summer. I had people still laughing whenever my name was used in a funny sentence. Which happened a lot.

Example: "summer is dying, dying" --charlotte's web I also knew someone named Gaylord Butte. I call that unfortunate.

My grandma had a female cowoker whose name was Molecule. Apparently her parents were physicists.

While walking by the window of a local elementary school, I learned there were parents naming their kids Princess and Adonnys[sic].

Averted by this troper's wife who wouldn't let him name either of his daughters "Rikku" no matter how hard he pushed for it.

This troper knew a boy in middle school whose name was "Sextus". Yeah, being middle school, wasn't too fun, but he had a decent sense of humor about it. Apparently he has five older siblings named Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, and Quintus, all Roman names for the first, second, third, etc. sons. I've seen Quartus, and they're a girl.

I can beat everyone on this list: Where my mum works (primary school) there's a kid whose name is.... Sprinkler.

This is pretty tame compared to a lot of names on this list, but there was a girl in my eighth grade class named Ellish. Not so bad, but it was pronounced Eye-lish, and the teachers called her Eyelash for the first few weeks because they couldn't seem to remember her name.

There was also a guy in that class named Dulaney who went by Tripper.

This Troper's very pregnant older sister declared that she was naming her son Anal (A-nahl) and insisted for several weeks before she was talked out of it and named the baby Bruce.

This Troper knows a guy called Chris. Chris Peacock. Say it out loud and you'll get it. Thankfully, his parents chose Chris over Drew.