2025, Family, Gatherings, Kids, Movies, Uncategorized

What’s In A Name

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A couple of Sundays ago, Husband and I arrived at church to play bells with the hand bell choir and found, upon reading the bulletin, that there was to be a baptism. That wasn’t at all unusual, but what was unusual was the name the parents chose for their son. Yes, we were to participate in the baptism of a little boy who had been named “Tarzan”.

Of all the names to hang on someone, Tarzan isn’t one that immediately pops into my mind. We have had some unusual names for baptisms lately, like Coven, pronounced like cove and not like the name for a group of witches. Tarzan, however, really takes the cake. What would you call him for short? Zan? Tarzy? Tartar? Zanzan?

I really can’t imagine what could have led people to choose that name, and I can foresee a rough time for the child once he starts school. We didn’t get to see little Tarzan as the family all had the flu and they cancelled and haven’t rescheduled the baptism.

What are some unusual names that you have run across? If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?

51 thoughts on “What’s In A Name”

  2. The name Maverick for boys seems to be on the upswing. I know of at least two, one of which is in our extended family. Those same parents recently birthed a second boy. They named him Titus, which is apparently biblical. It doesn’t take any imagination at all to foresee how “Titus” will be corrupted by schoolmates.

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    2. Which Maverick, or Mavrick are they alluding to, I wonder. The Ford vehicle, the television show, the motherless calf or the rebellious individual? When one chooses a name that carries other meanings, it suggests some sort of intent.

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  4. Some politically active people in the late 60s named their child “Freedom”. Sounded good. He grew up to be known as “Fred”, though.
    I got to change my name several times when I moved to Taiwan. First, I got changed into Mandarin: from David Alexander to Ya Da-wei. Then THAT got changed into Taiwanese “A Tai-ui”. When I was involved in college campus evangelism, that got abbreviated (in Mandarin) to “Ya-guh” (brother Ya). Eventually I was ordained to the ministry, in Taiwanese, and became “A Bok-su”. That last guy, “Aboksu” became a character who has thankfully faded away after more than 6 years of retirement.

    I regret having lost my adopted home and language. My spouse does not regret, at all, the demise of Aboksu.

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    2. In my years of Child Protective Services there were fads of names. In the mid-80s we were placing “Circle”, “Star” and “White Rabbit”. That was closely followed in the 90s by scores of little Elvises, named after Elvis Presley died. Bon Jovi came up, as well. There was also a Placenta out there somewhere. Mom heard that word during childbirth and thought it was pretty. What do you even say?

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      1. Placing refers to children who could not live with their parents for various reasons, so they went to foster care, hospitals, or residential treatment facilities. Some of the kids were cocaine babies or they had Fetal Alcohol Syndromes that resulted in terrible behavior issues.

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  5. I’ve heard that more aggressive names are on the upswing – I read about a child named Rifle…

    Our grandson is named Zion, for the park in which he is believed to have been conceived. That might get interesting at some point… be misunderstood for something religious?

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    1. In Lou’s family there is a child named Gauge. His father is a bipolar gun seller who cannot hold a regular job. His judgement is terrible, causing a string of difficult/life threatening situations. And he named that poor child Gauge.

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I have always believed that what parents name a child indicate a lot about the parent and not much about the child. Parents who name a child Tarzan have a set of values that I simply do not understand. Our next door neighbors have two boys named Jackson and Mason. Both names are highly popular in the boys’ age groups and you get a stampede when you say those names (like Debbie, Kathy, Mary of my age). In my son’s age group there were scores of Jasons and Christophers. (Son is Benjamin, which he likes).

    Remember all the Jennifer/Jennys following the movie Love Story around the early 70s? In my family my bro-in-law is Hiram Philo. There is a child named Atlas, as well. Another family has an Esther and. Cora Lynn (old family name). Those are lovely to my ears.

    My paternal Grandma’s maiden name was Hoel (Norwegian derivative of Grubhoel). Dad’s uncle married Mary Cutter. They never let it rest that her name was then Mary Cutter Hoel.

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  8. Wow –
    Tarzan!?? Who does that?? I was looking up the name; in the language of the ‘great apes’, it means ‘white skin’ (how do they know that??) and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. had the name copyrighted. Seems that’s expired in the US.

    My mother-in-law was ‘Norma Jean’, and she didn’t like Norma, she liked Jean better.
    I’ve shared before, my Great-Grandmother was Ernestina, My dad is Joseph Erneststeven, and my brother is Ernest Steven. I’ve always liked that.

    I named a cow Mary. Her daughter was Marie, and her daughter was Antoinette.

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  10. My family called me Kris when I was a child. My brother still calls me Kris. I have a “sister”, Lori, who also calls me Kris. It’s comforting to me when people call me that. I don’t know when everyone began calling me by my full name. I suppose it’s my fault. When I sign my name, I sign my full name. Only the few people who knew me when I was young still calls me that. I really don’t care.

    If I could have any name I wanted, it would be “Ann.”

    My maternal grandma’s name was Helen Urania. I like the name Helen, but Urania? Why would you name someone that?

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  11. I changed my name from Sherri to Sherri Lee in 8th grade. Kind of a familial thing – on my dad’s side, evcerybody had double names. Unfortunately, nobody was interested in my name change (except my sainted mother) so when I changed schools in 9th grade, I took away the space to make it Sherrilee. I changed it legally when I split from first wasband.

    When I went to China to get YA, it was common to take the girls’ Chinese names and keep them as their middle names. Haiyi is her middle name. Of course, her first name is from an old movie, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, so I can’t throw any stones.

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  12. When I was in junior high, there was a kid in my class whose name was Robin Hood. He was not amused and was extremely aggressive when making sure he was called “Rob”.

    My mom swears that she knew twin sisters in high school name Ima June and Ura June. Last name Bugg.

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  14. I always like the name Artemus. (Wild Wild West).
    And the formal “Elizabeth”.
    I know several of them who go by Betty. I never understood how you get Betty from that.

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  16. Oddly, though there are many ways of shortening my first name, no one has ever done it. I have always been plain old Margaret. Well, actually, I have one friend who sometimes calls me Maggie, which is okay with me. I don’t care for Marge, though. Peggy would have been acceptable too, I think. I was named after my mother’s best friend, my auntie Marge. How my mother came up with Lorna as a middle name for me, I have no idea, and I really dislike it, and have never used it.

    The Danish equivalent to Margaret is Margrethe, and you’d think that somewhere along the line, someone might have attempted to change my name to that as it’s much easier for a Dane to pronounce. But that didn’t happen until I arrived in the Twin Cities. There are several people at the Danish American Center who assume that since I’m Danish, my real name must be Margrethe. They are quite surprised when I tell them that my real name is Margaret, but it all makes sense when I tell them my mother was Irish. I’m just glad she didn’t think to name me Mairéad, the Gaelic version of it.

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  17. The local grade school bully used my Wes and added enough to name an animal considered vermin. I hated that. In some consolation, Chester spent time in the North Dakota penitentiary Bismarck.

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  18. At one of my jobs, I came across the names Appleseed Jesusdaughter, and Rhett Turnipseed. I wanted to marry them off – she could be Appleseed Jesusdaughter-Turnipseed.

    I do like to put names together like that. At my current job, there’s a woman named Adorable Smith. I’d like her to marry Kyle Squirrel. She’d be Adorable Squirrel. Of course, no one would ever take her seriously.

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  19. At my last job, about 30 years ago, we were running a contest to promote some of the books we published. One of the entries, from Idaho I think, was from someone named Garda Slorp. We were convinced that couldn’t really be a name and that someone was toying with us but on further research we ascertained that, yup, there really was a Garda Slorp.

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  20. My grandmother swore that there was a boy named Francis Frances in her high school and a girl named Frances (something else) they married shortly after high school and she became Frances Frances and as a couple they were Francis and Frances Frances. Would my sainted grandma lie?

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  24. And the Trump administration had to find some soldier named Bragg so as to rename Fort Liberty back to Confederate general Bragg. The new Bragg was so unknown that he didn’t have a Wikipedia page about him.

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