Australians are choosing oddly spelled baby names. (They spell “spelled” as “spelt” too!)
Most parents these days are drawing on the cool SMS and email spellings, by eschewing traditional spellings for versions such as Alex-Zander, Cam’ron, Emma-Lee, Ozkah, Thaillah and Ameleiyah.
Social analyst Mark McCrindle looked at Australian births in 2007 and discovered that the name Jayden was registered spelt in 12 ways, Aidan in nine ways, and Amelia and Tahlia in eight ways.
The name Lachlan had five other versions - Lochlyn, Lochlin, Lochlen, Lochlain and Lauchlan.
“The use of a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’ has hit epidemic proportions, as has the use of ‘k’ over ‘c’ like in the names Jaykob and Lynkon, double letters like Siimon and Chriss and hyphens like Emma-Lee,” News.com.au quoted McCrindle, of private research agency McCrindle Research, as saying.
He blames “the phonetic spelling in email and text messaging” and parents’ desire to make each child unique — or “U-Neekke.”
I will have you know that my name is significantly less common among recent American baby girls than is “Unique”.
Heck, my name is Peter and when I look over my students’ names I feel unique.
Unfortunately, my oldest daughter is named Katrina. We loved the name until… well… you know.
We have a Michaela who will spend her entire life telling people how to spell her name. I have seen people spell it where the only letters they got right were the “M” and “la”! I always tell people, “it’s Michael with an a at the end.” It’s pretty funny to see how people have to stop and think about that one.
I’m afraid we didn’t think much of it when we chose the name! Poor girl! And we’re the one’s who spelled it “right”.
Sometimes, I think parents give kids these oddly spelled versions of common names just to torture them. After all, how many kids named “Leighsah”, “Jym”, or “Khrystian” are ever going to get their name spelled right on the first try?
I’ve got those beat.
In my district we have twins named Lemonjello and Orangejello. I swear this is true.
Now I have never actually met this one, but I have talked to multiple teachers who swear this is true…we have a student in our district named ShiThead. (pronounced sha-thea-ed)
Lauchlan is a family name and I’ve often noticed that different families who pass that name down have different spellings. I’ve noticed the same with many old, and especially scottish (since that’s my background) names. It has nothing to do with the internet or flaky parents. It’s simply a reflection of the history of the name and what family it comes from.
Multiple spellings sometimes have a long and respected history.
When Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley referred to his twin daughters Monique and Unique in Beverly Hills Cop 2, it was a joke. Today it wouldn’t be. That was only 21 years ago.
I rarely miss an opportunity for a bad pun, so I was disappointed that the title of the post was not “Misspelt Youth”.
Gahrie: That “Shi Thead” one is probably an urban legend. The fact that “many people swear its true” is usually a tip off. I have heard that one for years and in three different states. However, my ex Father in law was a guidance supervisor on Long Island who visited several different schools. Once while visiting a school in the Bronx he saw a display outside the office honoring outstanding studenst and there was a picture of the beaming face of Gonorrhea Johnson, student of the month.
How’s “Emma-lee” a misspelling? It’s a compound, and it doesn’t seem all that outlandish to me.
Some parents don’t think do they? But you can safely bet those name spellings are not unique to Australia, it is happening world wide. There is more than one way to spell Joanne isn’t there? Jo-anne, Johanne, Joanne, whose to say which one is correct. Btw, I’m also a Joanne.