Seriously?

Doesn't everyone want to have their child taken seriously?

If they do, then why do they burden their child with a made-up, strangely-spelled, literacy-impeding name?

We went to the library last week and I was stunned by the names of the local children pinned up on the wall of the youth section, so perplexed that I had to write them down so I wouldn't distrust my memory later.

Here are some samples of this shameful trend in names:

Taegan
Audrye
Tayden
McKya
Alexxa
Amrika
Addilyn
Brydee

And, the one that tops the unfortunate Kenadee I've been citing for years as The Worst Child Name Ever:

Kenadi

My dear friend tells me a relative named their child Brydnn.

There is no end to my disbelief. These children will spend their lives spelling or correcting pronunciation of their names for other people.

"No, that's Alexxa with TWO x's."

"Audrye, R-Y-E, not R-E-Y."

"Ken-a-di. Just like it sounds."

Stop making up names. Spell names correctly.


When the baby was born, did the parents really think:
"Oh, he's here! It's Brydee!"

This yearning for individualism (or whatever it is) ends up looking quite similar to a lack of education. It encourages misspellings and phonics over grammar, a trend I believe equal to "wars and rumors of wars" as a sign of impending doom. Language matters. It's how we communicate. Making up names or turning "Jill" into "Jyl" or "Jiyll" is detrimental, both to your child's ability to be taken seriously later in life and their ability to make sense out of language.

Seriously. Stop cursing your children.