this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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I've heard so many claims of Ladasha and Elldasha, along with reports of Lamonjalo and Orangelo. I'd expect them to be more prevalent with so many people reporting they know one.
To be fair, Gaylord is an actual name that exists, and yet, you probably don't know any.
I do.
We even have hotels named after the family.
I have personally known two Gaylords. And there was an olympic gymnast by that name.
But I only hear those other names in stories that have a weird class/race component, and the sheer volume of reports with no corroboration is suspect.
Allegedly real names that didn't break a database so much as people's brains:
Female (fe-MAA-leh) - the story goes that the mother didn't know the word "female" or didn't know it was spelled that way, so assumed the nurses named the child for her.
Ampersand (pronounced as the regular word) - the mother liked the sound of it, and well, IMO, it does have an "Amber" + "Amanda" + "Sandra" kind of ring to it (Not now, Lou Bega).
Shithead (shuh-THEED) - there may be at least two people with this name, or else I've heard the same urban legend / of the same person from two different directions. That is, I had heard of this name prior to chatting online with someone who claimed to have met a person by this name.
In before someone posts the Key & Peele sketch.
In the mid 80's, a friend that worked in a hospital was telling about unusual names. My favorite:
Syphilis (SUH-fill-ess) - the word was on the mother's chart, she liked it as a variant of "Phyllis", and thusly named her baby.
I have encountered a fe-MAA-leh in the wild. Also a Darealest and Dacoldest (brothers), and I saw a sign from the hospital listing a new baby named "Yahansum Guy"
"My name is Shithead and i can do a blackflip"
Dunno, teachers meet a lot of students, seems likely to me that a lot of us would encounter the same kid and not forget her.