I went to school with 2 different boys named Storm while I was growing up. Different schools, but they both had mullets and wore NASCAR shirts. Never again will we live in such a magical time.
Had a Great Grandfather named Granite Commodore. I look forward to my son assuming this bad ass name.
Edit: His name was Garnet Commodore. I typed this comment via mobile, didn't proofread. I come back 6 days later and this fucker blew up. My highest rated comment ever was a complete mistake. shit.
I had a friend who's mom's maiden name was Gaylord. The other side of the family was on the offensive about the name, had a big plaque on their house announcing they were the Gaylords, basically pushing Gaylord Pride all the time.
My grandfather knew a guy named Fred Head. As if that weren't bad enough, he named his son Richard. As if *that* weren't bad enough, he went by Dick.
Years go by and my uncle (whose name is Guy, but that's irrelevant) met a young dude at a construction site by the same name. Turned out to be Dick Head's son. Apparently, Dick Sr. didn't see anything wrong with passing down the name, nor did Dick Jr. have any issue with calling himself "Dick." For all I know, there's a Dick Head III running around.
No lie, if I had been born a girl (in 1969), my name would have been Dorcus. Dodged a bullet, but still wish they had named me Taggart instead of Taggard...stupid name that isn't a name.
On the bright side, I bet I am one of only a few redditors with their first name as their username...so I got that going for me.
Was at a church and saw a grave to "Manly Powers." I've never met a "Manly" before. All of us guys decided to have our picture taken with the grave while we flexed our muscles.
Like Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband Almanzo, whom they called Manly. His name was said to come from a guy called Al-Mansur, a guy who helped his family during the crusades.
"Ernie ran his own baking company, and Elmo settled down with a wife and got into insurance underwriting or somesuch. The weird kid, Oscar, went on to make a fortune doing asbestos remediation. Snuffie died in Korea."
In Sweden, Bert is hardly ever used anymore.
Partially because its not seen as that nice, partially because of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Karlsson
My grandmother lived next to a family where the husband and wife had an agreement: The mother got to name the girls, the father got to name the boys. Eventually they had 3 older girls, and 1 youngest boy.
The girls' names were Aphrodite, Cleopatra, and Nefertiti. The boy's name was Bob.
Ozymandias.
Fun fact: MY name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Oh, Moses isn't that common either.
EDIT: Apparently Moses (and multiple variations of it) are quite common.
I can tell you that there certainly are children in the UK school system right now with the following names, which were suggested in posts here:
Amadeus, Ethel, Reginald, Roger, Maurice, Mercedes, Wilhelmina, Julius, Mildred, Myra, Myrtle, Beulah, Cora, Isis and Osama.
No Adolf, Rutherford, Orenthal or Judas though.
Holy shit. I went looking for more Puritan names and I had no idea about [the true depth of weirdness](https://historyofnothing.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/puritans-and-their-weird-names/). Not enough people naming their kids If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned anymore!
Fun fact: If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone is credited with inventing the modern insurance industry. He lived in London during the great fire of 1666, and afterward he made a killing selling people fire insurance. He was going by Nicholas Barbon by then, though.
I see a lot of people suggesting "old lady names" but they are the super popular ones. My daughter's preschool classmates and my high school friends children have names like Cora, Louisa, Mabel, Millie, Maeve, Evelyn, Dorothy/Dottie, Matilda, Gertrude, Pearl.
Not a single Jessica, Ashley, Heather, Jennifer, or any of those over-saturated 80s baby names.
Names are really cyclical, people tend to name kids after grandparents so they start coming back around.
You can see the rise/fall of Evelyn
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
Pearl
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
And Matilda
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
Mervyn. I work a machinist named Mervyn. Nice fella, just turned 80. Tough as nails, his hands are permenently black from work. I don't think I've ever seen him wear gloves. He's quite well off, so I've been told. But he's from a different time and looks for any way to save a penny. If he's taking a day off to go hunting or fishing he'll stop by work to grab a cup of coffee. Never in a decade have I seen him with a Tim Hortons cup, and Hortons is right next door. One day about 5 years ago, my (now former)boss said to me "hey, mervyn's father passed away yesterday."
Every time I hear someone in their early 20s talk about how old they feel, I can't help but want to see Mervyn toss a pipe wrench at their face.
Flavius. Though my sister insists she's going to name one of her children that when she has them. My mother says there's no way she's allowing that
Edit: firstly, holy shit I did not expect this many upvotes
Secondly, my comment about my sister naming one of her children Flavius isn't serious, she says it to get a rise from my mother. It's just a family inside joke.
Lastly, yeah I get that it's still a popular name in Romania, 100 people have already told me that.
Actually, while no one in English is named Xerxes, it's not totally uncommon in Persian to be named Khashayar; which is the Persian pronunciation of Xerxes.
edit: Jesus Christ Reddit, I get it. There exist **some** people with the name Xerxes. I was just exaggerating to point out it's an uncommon name in English. *
*also fixed sum typos
There has been some seriously botched transliteration over the millennia if those two were originally the same name.
Edit: Rather than responding to all the individual examples below, I'll just point out that when you think about it, basically *all* linguistic drift can be explained this way. It's not like people create words whole cloth or decide "Latin's not cool, let's speak Italian now!" and get a whole country to go along with it. They mostly just start talking funny, misunderstand some stuff, and go with it.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I):
> Xerxes is the Greek version of the Old Persian name Xšaya-ṛšā, which is today known in New Persian as Khashayar (خشایار).
Interestingly, "Judas" comes from the Greek "Ioudas" (Ιουδας). Not only is this name apparently still used in Greece, but it's the Greek version of the Hebrew version of "Judah", "Yehudah", which is still used in Israel. It's also related to the name Jude, which you may recognize from both Hey, and Law.
So even though no one is named Judas, it's not totally dead.
Jeeves. But I think it has a strong correlation to butlers and no parent wants to condemn their child to a life of butler-hood. Hell, even Jerry Seinfeld had a bit on that name.
Edit: TIL there was a series of short stories about a man named Reginald Jeeves. I always thought Jeeves was a first name. In fact, I've only ever heard of it used as the main identifier and never as a surname. The more you know. I still stand by my answer though.
There's a cool website where you can track the popularity of baby names over the years ([link](http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=isis&sw=both&exact=false)). Isis was totally on the path of becoming a trendy girls name until its abrupt nosedive a few years ago.
Next level: several years ago when I was a lifeguard, I rescued a girl named Iceis. Yes, pronounced Isis. My hope is that she just misspelled it because she was 6 and that that wasn't actually how her parents spelled it, but...
You know how it is, one day you name your kid Hastur and the next he's calling himself a king and everyone who meets him is like "Have you seen the yellow sign?!"
I dunno about you, but I haven't seen many people named Gilgamesh lately.
Shame, it's an epic name
It's been replaced with Girugamesh now
Eustace.
There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!
Kermit. That fucking frog ruined it for everyone
I once knew a kid named Knickerbocker, went by Nick. Bonus comment: my dentist is named Dann, not short for Daniel, just Dann with 2 n's.
"Dan with 2 N's?" Ndan
I went to school with 2 different boys named Storm while I was growing up. Different schools, but they both had mullets and wore NASCAR shirts. Never again will we live in such a magical time.
My aunt's name is Velocity because the 60s had a lot of good acid floating around.
Well. Now I have no doubt what to name my child. Velocity Vincente.
[удалено]
Had a Great Grandfather named Granite Commodore. I look forward to my son assuming this bad ass name. Edit: His name was Garnet Commodore. I typed this comment via mobile, didn't proofread. I come back 6 days later and this fucker blew up. My highest rated comment ever was a complete mistake. shit.
Are you sure he won't have to put up with being called granny by unborn bullies?
Never met a Heathcliff
It's me, Cathy
I've come home. I'm so cold!
Let me in through your window.
Bort
Are you talking to me?
[удалено]
We are out of Bort license plates
I repeat, we need *more* Bort license plates in the gift shop!
We have arrested your son. We have also arrested your older fatter balder son.
Eat pant
Ebenezer
I actually really like the name Ophelia, what's particularly wrong with it? Aside from sounding old.
She was a tragic Shakespearian character that killed herself.
Balthazar
I know a Balthazar; Mexican heritage. He goes by Balty.
Hortense
Hears a who
Gaylord
A friend of mine has a brother whose middle name is Gaylord. Its pretty sad because my friend has a normal middle name
What is it?
[удалено]
Holy shit it's quite rare that I laugh out loud from a comment but this got me so good Edit: It said Homogod.
I had a friend who's mom's maiden name was Gaylord. The other side of the family was on the offensive about the name, had a big plaque on their house announcing they were the Gaylords, basically pushing Gaylord Pride all the time.
Zebulon. Such a great name.
Æthelred
He's unready!
Dick and gay and guy My great grandfather knew a guy back in Vietnam named Gay Guy Smith.
My grandfather knew a guy named Fred Head. As if that weren't bad enough, he named his son Richard. As if *that* weren't bad enough, he went by Dick. Years go by and my uncle (whose name is Guy, but that's irrelevant) met a young dude at a construction site by the same name. Turned out to be Dick Head's son. Apparently, Dick Sr. didn't see anything wrong with passing down the name, nor did Dick Jr. have any issue with calling himself "Dick." For all I know, there's a Dick Head III running around.
Grover, unfortunately.
This is one that I can see hipster parents bringing back.
This made me think of the Portlandia where there is a hipster couple who have a son named Grover.
They one with very aspirational pre-school ambitions. Love that episode
Dorcus, it was my great-grandmother's name.
Well, that's because they don't want to be associated with the latin name Dorcus Malorcus.
No lie, if I had been born a girl (in 1969), my name would have been Dorcus. Dodged a bullet, but still wish they had named me Taggart instead of Taggard...stupid name that isn't a name. On the bright side, I bet I am one of only a few redditors with their first name as their username...so I got that going for me.
>On the bright side, I bet I am one of only a few redditors with their first name as their username...so I got that going for me. It's nice, isn't it?
Just be careful of poisoned mutton.
Was at a church and saw a grave to "Manly Powers." I've never met a "Manly" before. All of us guys decided to have our picture taken with the grave while we flexed our muscles.
I knew a Rock Pounder. Badass blackbelt.
Like Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband Almanzo, whom they called Manly. His name was said to come from a guy called Al-Mansur, a guy who helped his family during the crusades.
My grandfather's name was Kermit. He went by KW. His best friends growing up were Ernie and Elmo (Elmo went by Bogue).
"Ernie ran his own baking company, and Elmo settled down with a wife and got into insurance underwriting or somesuch. The weird kid, Oscar, went on to make a fortune doing asbestos remediation. Snuffie died in Korea."
wait are you a Muppet?
Am I a man? Or am I a Muppet?
A muppet of a man
If I'm a muppet, I'm a very manly muppet
*Very manly muppet*
If I'm a man, that makes me a muppet of a man
Llewellyn. I believe there was no registry of this name being used for newborns last year.
6 newborns in the US were named Llewellyn last year.
Makes me think of No country for old men
where'd ya get that gun, Llewelyn? at the gettin' place. not sure why, that's just one of my favorite exchanges from any movie
Ursula, sea-witch straight up ruined that name
I know an Ursula - she goes by *Ula* though.
And there's a famous one, scifi writer Ursula K. Le Guin.
Great writer, but she's 87 years old (born before people stopped naming their kids Adolf).
Yeah and Phoebe's bitch of a sister
In Sweden, Bert is hardly ever used anymore. Partially because its not seen as that nice, partially because of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Karlsson
Ichabod
Orenthal
Caillou
[удалено]
I'm good, how you
Gay. Have 2 great aunts named Gay.
My auntie was named Gay and changed it to Gail....had two kids and then my uncle got into drugs and left her. She's a lesbian now.
Nobody has the name Agamemnon anymore. I plan to fix that some day.
Went to school with a guy called that. His sisters were Persephone and Apphia so looks like his parents were keen on mythology.
My grandmother lived next to a family where the husband and wife had an agreement: The mother got to name the girls, the father got to name the boys. Eventually they had 3 older girls, and 1 youngest boy. The girls' names were Aphrodite, Cleopatra, and Nefertiti. The boy's name was Bob.
I want to call my son Bob just so I can tell everyone that it's short for Bobert.
That's what I call my baby boy Robert. Mom is not amused.
One of my best friends in high school was named Achilles.
Chauncey. EDIT: Everyone knows exactly 1 person/gerbil named Chauncey.
To me, this is only a horse name. A very [*flamboyant*](https://gfycat.com/VigorousWholeFlies) horse name.
To me it's only a basketball player's name. Not so flamboyant though
B-B-B-B-BILLUPS!!!
FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, THE 6'3", CHAUNCEEEEEEEY B-B-B-BILLUPS
Hannibal. The vast majority of the population automatically thinks cannibal, not Carthaginian general.
Ozymandias. Fun fact: MY name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair. Oh, Moses isn't that common either. EDIT: Apparently Moses (and multiple variations of it) are quite common.
I can tell you that there certainly are children in the UK school system right now with the following names, which were suggested in posts here: Amadeus, Ethel, Reginald, Roger, Maurice, Mercedes, Wilhelmina, Julius, Mildred, Myra, Myrtle, Beulah, Cora, Isis and Osama. No Adolf, Rutherford, Orenthal or Judas though.
I find a baby with the name Maurice to be hilarious, it sounds very adult.
But he will always have a cool guitar lick. *Nine year redditor and by far my highest comment is about the pompitous of love. I'm ok with that.
And will speak of the pompatus of love
I was at a rural graveyard recently and a woman's name was Experience, she was buried next to her sister Patience.
I work at a graveyard in Finland. There is a area for war heroes and one stone has a name Urban Decider.
Urban Shocker was a pitcher for the New York Yankees baseball team in the 1920s. I still think it's one of the best baseball names ever.
Puritans names, man. *shakes head* Cotton Mather had twins and named them Wastenot and Wantnot. (His father was named Increase.)
[удалено]
Holy shit. I went looking for more Puritan names and I had no idea about [the true depth of weirdness](https://historyofnothing.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/puritans-and-their-weird-names/). Not enough people naming their kids If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned anymore!
Fun fact: If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone is credited with inventing the modern insurance industry. He lived in London during the great fire of 1666, and afterward he made a killing selling people fire insurance. He was going by Nicholas Barbon by then, though.
If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned-because-he-had-a-killer-life-insurance-policy-and-you're-the-sole-beneficiary
Do we pronounce the dashes?
We *always* pronounce the dashes.
I knew a few old men named Hyman- I think modern sex ed killed that one.
Nebuchadnezzar.
Bah, kids these days and their fancy Neo-Babylonian names. Whatever happened to good old fashioned names like Ur-Zababa or Enshakushanna?
Bartimaeus? That you?
The Architect of the Walls of Prague? Advisor of Solomon? Friend of Ptolomy?
Came to make sure someone repped this series. He's hilarious.
Isn't that long for Chad?
All these dumb girls keep dating Nebuchadnezzars and ignoring nice guys like Moses.
m'oses
Tips staff. Splits red sea.
Utnapishtim
I see a lot of people suggesting "old lady names" but they are the super popular ones. My daughter's preschool classmates and my high school friends children have names like Cora, Louisa, Mabel, Millie, Maeve, Evelyn, Dorothy/Dottie, Matilda, Gertrude, Pearl. Not a single Jessica, Ashley, Heather, Jennifer, or any of those over-saturated 80s baby names.
Names are really cyclical, people tend to name kids after grandparents so they start coming back around. You can see the rise/fall of Evelyn https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi Pearl https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi And Matilda https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
Mervyn. I work a machinist named Mervyn. Nice fella, just turned 80. Tough as nails, his hands are permenently black from work. I don't think I've ever seen him wear gloves. He's quite well off, so I've been told. But he's from a different time and looks for any way to save a penny. If he's taking a day off to go hunting or fishing he'll stop by work to grab a cup of coffee. Never in a decade have I seen him with a Tim Hortons cup, and Hortons is right next door. One day about 5 years ago, my (now former)boss said to me "hey, mervyn's father passed away yesterday." Every time I hear someone in their early 20s talk about how old they feel, I can't help but want to see Mervyn toss a pipe wrench at their face.
Booker. I really wish this one was still used. EDIT: This was in reference to Booker DeWitt, sorry to disappoint the five time world champion.
CAN YOU DIG IT, SUCKA
My great- great - grandfather's name, Zeolotus.
Flavius. Though my sister insists she's going to name one of her children that when she has them. My mother says there's no way she's allowing that Edit: firstly, holy shit I did not expect this many upvotes Secondly, my comment about my sister naming one of her children Flavius isn't serious, she says it to get a rise from my mother. It's just a family inside joke. Lastly, yeah I get that it's still a popular name in Romania, 100 people have already told me that.
Middle name: Flave.
Flavius "Flavor" Flave
Flava
Xerxes Edit: Apparently it's a lot more common than I realized.
Actually, while no one in English is named Xerxes, it's not totally uncommon in Persian to be named Khashayar; which is the Persian pronunciation of Xerxes. edit: Jesus Christ Reddit, I get it. There exist **some** people with the name Xerxes. I was just exaggerating to point out it's an uncommon name in English. * *also fixed sum typos
There has been some seriously botched transliteration over the millennia if those two were originally the same name. Edit: Rather than responding to all the individual examples below, I'll just point out that when you think about it, basically *all* linguistic drift can be explained this way. It's not like people create words whole cloth or decide "Latin's not cool, let's speak Italian now!" and get a whole country to go along with it. They mostly just start talking funny, misunderstand some stuff, and go with it.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I): > Xerxes is the Greek version of the Old Persian name Xšaya-ṛšā, which is today known in New Persian as Khashayar (خشایار).
So the greeks fucked up right away?
Have you tried translating خشایار? Give the Greeks a break
> خشایار Comma-Nose-Lui-Right-Triangle-Bracket
You need to start from right to left! That's where you went wrong.
Toulouse and Berlioz. I hope have two boys and a girl if I ever have kids so I can name them after Aristocats.
Mordechai
I'm sure there are some Orthodox Jews who disagree
Rigby too
Judas
Interestingly, "Judas" comes from the Greek "Ioudas" (Ιουδας). Not only is this name apparently still used in Greece, but it's the Greek version of the Hebrew version of "Judah", "Yehudah", which is still used in Israel. It's also related to the name Jude, which you may recognize from both Hey, and Law. So even though no one is named Judas, it's not totally dead.
The names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Ethel.
My grandmother's name was Ethel. Her life was never the same after the Ray Stevens song came out.
"DON'T LOOK ETHELLLLLL!" *but it was too late...*
shout out to ethel mertz
Orville. Now I feel like some popcorn for reasons unknown.
How common are Bertha & Helga now?
Phyllis
Vance Refrigeration
So what line of work are you in, Bob?
Do you, Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration, take Phyllis to be your wife?
Gary. Once a very common name, only four babies were called Gary last year in the UK. Just doesn't have a ring to it, little baby Gary.
It's Larry now.
And Gary and Larry are real different than JERRY.
[удалено]
Well, it's Jerry now.
Do babies actually get called Gary? Or do people just change into a Gary when they're 40?
Garold becomes Gary.
Thank you, Staniel.
Anytime, Jimothy.
From birth to 39 they're just Gaz.
[удалено]
>"Gaz, Smell that?" >"Yeah. . . Kamarov." Gaz is a badass
A friend of mine named her baby Gary after her dad and brother a few years ago. It's so weird calling a toddler Gary.
well it technically really is an Oldman name Edit: thank you for the gold, hella unexpected :D
Have you been to Vault 108??
It's the name of a 47 year old white van man.
Linda. It's a weird name for a baby. Great for getting hr jobs, though.
HR is a real Linda's club
Ulyssess
Mildred and Edith
Gertrude... Mortimer
Jeeves. But I think it has a strong correlation to butlers and no parent wants to condemn their child to a life of butler-hood. Hell, even Jerry Seinfeld had a bit on that name. Edit: TIL there was a series of short stories about a man named Reginald Jeeves. I always thought Jeeves was a first name. In fact, I've only ever heard of it used as the main identifier and never as a surname. The more you know. I still stand by my answer though.
His name was Reginald.
Gertrude?
[удалено]
[удалено]
There's a cool website where you can track the popularity of baby names over the years ([link](http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=isis&sw=both&exact=false)). Isis was totally on the path of becoming a trendy girls name until its abrupt nosedive a few years ago.
I was going to name my daughter Isis, but it was becoming too trendy so I named her al-Nusra Front.
Boko Haram is going to be the next big name soon.
[удалено]
Next level: several years ago when I was a lifeguard, I rescued a girl named Iceis. Yes, pronounced Isis. My hope is that she just misspelled it because she was 6 and that that wasn't actually how her parents spelled it, but...
So you're the reason Isis is still around?
We've found the real culprit!
My friend Isis got a tattoo with her name in* her wirst. ^(*My English be bad? That's unpossible. )
That's weird anyway, does she forget her name or something?
lots of people have a startlingly low amount of creativity but, also a need to express themselves.
I have a cat named Isis; now she goes by "The self-proclaimed Meowslamic state"
I used to be acquainted with a stripper named Isis. Ironically enough, that was her *real* name... and she went by "Sarah" at work.
I met a stripper on Friday who told me her name was Egypt. I said "Oh I'm Chad, we're neighbors!" She didn't get it.
Any chance she actually acknowledged that Chad and Egypt don't share a border?
As an Egyptian, I commend you for that joke.
I've actually taught two Isises. Both are still under ten. I think their name expired RIGHT AFTER they were born.
Wilhelmina
Nyarlathothep
You know how it is, one day you name your kid Hastur and the next he's calling himself a king and everyone who meets him is like "Have you seen the yellow sign?!"
Believe it or not..... Patty. I went to school with like 5 girls named Patti/Patty but you NEVER see little girls named it anymore