10 Strangest Names EVAR!

Posted by Alex in Neatorama Only on May 19, 2008 at 6:59 pm



For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro's website and blog.

This Bizarro comic inspired me to look for bad (but real) names on the Web - and boy was I floored with the result that Google returned for the search terms "bad names" (6 million results!) and "worst names" (499,000 results). It seems that some parents are either cruel or mad when they name their kids.

Here are a few that are particularly strange:

• Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K. Yes, that's right: a baby named after the illicit drug ketamine. Oh, and that's pronounced "Your Highness," by the way.

Urhiness Kendall was born on Saturday, February 15, 2003, weighing 8 pounds 8 ounces. The baby shared birthdays with another guy with a weird name: Galileo Glilei, who went on to become a famous mathematician and astronomer. (Source - previously on Neatorama here)

• GoldenPalaceDotCom Silverman. In 2005, the Internet casino GoldenPalace.com paid $15,000 to name a baby after itself and got more than it paid for in media attention. Sure most people condemned this sort of outrageous publicity stunt - some even calling it a form of child abuse - but the good news was that GoldenPalaceDotCom Silverman was born healthy at 7 pounds, 10 ounces on May 19, 2005.

Actually, baby Silverman wasn't the only human in the world named after the casino: In the same year, a 33-year-old mother of five named Terri Ilagan auctioned off the right to her name on eBay, which the casino won for a mere $15,199. The re-branded Mrs. GoldenPalace.com said: "To my kids and to my husband, I will always be Terri. My husband is real supportive. He thinks it's funny. As long as they get to call me Mom, they don't care. They are already starting to tease me and call me Goldie." (Source)

These two will join a GoldenPalace's branding of a Glaswegian woman's cleavage and their purchase of a decade-old "Virgin Mary" grilled cheese in the annals of the company's publicity stunts (Source)

• Joker Arroyo. Don't laugh: Mr. Arroyo is a Senator in the Philippines (What? Don't believe me? Check it out here).

His name "Joker" is derived from his father's fondness for playing cards. His brother is named "Jack." No words if there are any other siblings named Queen or King.

Update 5/29/08: Joker has a daughter whose name is also Joker Arroyo! Thanks Gabor Debreczeni!

Unusual names are pretty common in the Philippines: Bing, Bong, Ping, Ting, Led Zeppelin, Mick Jagger, Nirvana, Jejomar (yes, a combination of Jesus, Joseph and Mary) and Hitler Manila, whose sons are named Himmler and Hess. And no, Hitler Manila is a peaceful guy who doesn't share his namesake's Nazi ideology. (Source)

• Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (Pronounced "albin"). In 1991, Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding wanted to protest the naming law of Sweden, which states that the court can diapprove of names that "for some obvious reason are not suitable as a first name." They were fined 5,000 kronor (about $680 at the time).

The parents claimed that the 43-character name as "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation." The court didn't buy it and upheld the fine. Then the parents tried to resubmit the name as "A" (yes, one letter - also pronounced "albin"). The court didn't buy that either, saying that one letter names are prohibited.

The baby finally went with "Albin Hallin" though in his passport his name was given as "Icke namngivet gossebarn" meaning "unnamed little boy." (Source)

• KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. Well, technically, this is not his parents' fault but what Christopher Garnett did was pretty strange so we'll include him on this list.

In 2005, Christopher, a youth outreach worker for the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) agreed to change his name legally to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com to protest animal abuse by the food chain KFC. (Yes, and he's got a driver's license to prove it).

He did promise his mom that he'd change his name back when PETA's campaign against KFC was over in 2006. Throughout all this time, his parents continued to call him Chris (how unsupportive!)

(Source)

 

 

• Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon (1640 - 1698). Nicholas' shall we say "unique" name apparently ran in the family: his father was Praise-God Barbon. No, I'm not kidding - Nicholas was a real guy. He was an English economist, physician and financial speculator. He took part in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666 and even founded the city's first fire insurance company. By all accounts, he went by Nicholas throughout his life. (Source)

• God Shammgod. God plays professional basketball, currently for the Portland Chinooks of the International Basketball League. He played in the NBA for one season (with the Washington Wizards in 1997).

He even invented a streetball move, called The Shammgod, useful for creating space between you and your defender. And yes, God is on MySpace. (Photo: Hoops Addict)

• Batman Bin Suparman. This young Javanese man is blessed with being named after not just one, but two superheroes: Batman and Superman. And he's got an identity card to prove it ...

• Dick Assman. Yes, you read that right. Dick is a gas station owner in Saskatchewan, Canada, whose name made him a minor celebrity when David Letterman found him in 1995. Dick pronounced his German lastname as "uzman," but we all know better... (Source)


Photo: Frame enlargement of the short film, "Saskatchewan Part 2 (That's My Wonderful Town) by Brian Stockton (from Wikipedia)

• @. And finally, let's go full circle to "@," pronounced "ai ta" or "love him" by an unidentified Chinese couple:

The unidentified couple and the attempted naming were cited Thursday by a Chinese government official as an example of bizarre names creeping into the Chinese language.

"The father said 'the whole world uses it to write emails and translated into Chinese it means'love him'," Li Yuming, the vice director of the State Language Commission, said at a news conference.

No words on whether the name was rejected by the Chinese government (Source - Previously on Neatorama here).

More Unusual Names: Want more? Check out Wikipedia, which has a HUGE list of unusual names ...

Update 5/20/08: Well, hello diggers, after you're finished with this article, here are some more new fun articles on Neatorama (you won't be disappointed, I promise):

25 Strangest Collections on the Web
8 Golden Rules and 1 Not-So-Golden One
6 Micronations You can Join.

And of course, please come again - lots more fun stuff at the Neatorama homepage.


Previous post
this post? Please Email this               
Next post

FROM THE NEATORAMA ONLINE STORE - Your purchase helps support the blog!

COMMENT

75 comments to "10 Strangest Names EVAR!"

  1. Britt
    May 19th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    You should check out the list of Bad Baby Names.

    http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/

    Always has me howling with laughter.

  2. Jerse
    May 19th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    Actually, for Batman bin Suparman’s name - the Arabic reads “Batman bin Suferman” - there’s probably a little photoshop going on in that one…

  3. Alex
    May 19th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Suparman is a common Javanese name - almost all moslems there have “arabicized” names, though they seldom use it. I’d say someone actually mis-translated his name into Arabic rather than the other way around …

  4. sparge
    May 19th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

    Get ready for the people who swear they have a friend who knows someone who named their kid (pick one): Placenta, Female, Oranjello and Lemonjello (twins), Ampersand, and the like. THey usually pop up around posts like these.

  5. Evan Rappaport
    May 19th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    So at God Shammgod basketball games, who was the first person to hold up a “God is God” sign?

  6. Louisa
    May 19th, 2008 at 9:23 pm

    There’s a woman named Gay Fred who lives in little town in Missouri. I just love that name.

  7. Claire
    May 19th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

    My cousin’s friend named their daughter Ditch. Yep.

  8. Lore
    May 19th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    And I thought that my friend whose name was sterling was weird.

  9. Thomas
    May 20th, 2008 at 12:18 am

    Wow, I thought I was odd for having three esoteric English middle names, Ebeneezer Obediah Abedlego but these guys have me beat.

  10. Archbob
    May 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am

    I’m going to name my kid balfazzar, regardless if its a boy or a girl.

  11. Ollie
    May 20th, 2008 at 1:49 am

    Suparman is a javanese name. It’s not ‘Superman’ :D

  12. Emily M
    May 20th, 2008 at 2:03 am

    I was just having a conversation about weird names with my Boyfriend and his family.

    My boyfriend knew someone in highschool with the name “tittyporn Gangasac.” Probably not spelled exactly like that but he said if you looked at it that’s totally what it said….subs and teachers were quite confused.

  13. Pol x
    May 20th, 2008 at 3:27 am

    It was the man who founded the London fire brigade service who revelled in the Puritan monicker of

    The-Lord-is-My-Sheperd Barebones.

    Top stuff.

    his brother was Praise God Barebones.

  14. Eugenio Martínez Sierra
    May 20th, 2008 at 4:02 am

    Here, in Spain, we have a Kevincosner de Jesús. Yeah, he was named after Kevin Costner, but his parent´s didn´t know the right spelling of Kevin´s name. And it´s only the name There is not a surname in “Kevincosner de Jesús.”

    And in Venezuela there is a town where everybody name his children with strange names. In fact, the government made a law to stop this way of naming, cause the names are as strange as Genghis Kan, Nick Carter Backstreet boys, Makgiber, Yedoska (Y2K in Spanish) Adolfohitler (It´s only the name.) bla bla bla.

  15. Eugenio Martínez Sierra
    May 20th, 2008 at 4:03 am

    Oh, and my neighbors are called with names of flowers. All of them, boys and girls.

  16. Morgan
    May 20th, 2008 at 6:30 am

    I have a friend who’s friends with a teacher, who has a student named Shithead. Its pronounced Shi-teed. For real!

  17. Oomi
    May 20th, 2008 at 8:35 am

    engelberg humperdinck

  18. mona
    May 20th, 2008 at 9:21 am

    hilarious. you could do a whole list of these names just from the nba…

  19. just a guy
    May 20th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    KentuckyFriedCruelty.com looks like a complete tool.

  20. Jacques
    May 20th, 2008 at 9:43 am

    It’s illegal in Quebec to give your kid a name that is too bizarre, the naming nazis will refuse a registration if they feel that the name is too weird. My friends’ tried to name their kid Spatula but were denied, although they continued to call him Spatch.

  21. Ashley
    May 20th, 2008 at 10:07 am

    Anyone who uses the word “pregnant” to describe anything other than “about to bear offspring” gets no respect in my book. Self-important hippies.

  22. Mike Smith
    May 20th, 2008 at 10:22 am

    “Engelbert Humperdinck” is a stage name; his real name is Arnold George Dorsey.

  23. Robert B.
    May 20th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Do people who give their children bizarre names out of protest or for money think about the burden they put on the child? I have much more concern for my children than to subject them to the difficulties that a life with a strange name would cause them.

  24. L
    May 20th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    You find some gems if you’re into genealogy. One of my favourites was probably unintentional. Still, I wonder if, in the 1800s, poor little Harry Langstaff got teased a lot. He’d get teased today for sure!

  25. sefleury
    May 20th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    Just FYI, God Shammgod actually legally changed his own name from Shammgod Wells when he was a freshman at Providence College.

  26. sw
    May 20th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    i went to college with a guy who legally changed his name to Trout Fishing in America. He went by trout. Me, I never found Richard Brautigan all that readable, let alone insipring . . .

  27. Alex
    May 20th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    John Tierney of TierneyLab blog had a contest to determine the worst bad name ever, and the winner is: Iona Nipl!

    The judges chose it because, in addition to being an embarrassing pun, it also set up an inevitable reply from people imagining they were being wittily original. I called up Miss Knipl and asked her how many times she had heard someone meet her and reply, “I own two.”

    “I got sick of hearing it, but what can you do?” Miss Knipl said. “My mother never thought about that when she was naming me. It was her mother’s name. I came home from school a couple times crying and my mother said, ‘Oh, why did I do that?’ but it had never occurred to her how people would hear the name.”

    Miss Knipl shed the pun when she got married and began using her husband’s last name. But then, after they were divorced, she went right back to her old name. It might have simpler to keep her husband’s name, she told me, but by this time she had come to appreciate the advantages of Iona Knipl.

    “In school it bothered me, but now I think it’s neat,” she said. “It’s different.”

  28. Brian
    May 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    We named our kid Eris Helena Strange. My wife was ok with Strange, but put the Helena on there in honor of her grandmother. I also know of a couple in New York who gave their child the middle name “trouble”.

  29. Cnidaria
    May 20th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    My friend changed his name to Fire Penguin Disco Panda.

  30. Chris
    May 20th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    I still think the best one is Dixon Cox

  31. ToxicOreo
    May 20th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

    All I do all day for work is look at people’s names.

    The best one was “Applesauce Miller.”

  32. Samazon
    May 20th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    Crap! I used to know KentuckyFriedCruelty.com…but I just knew him as Chris Garnett…lame.

  33. Peter
    May 20th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    There used to be this guy at US Customs in San Francisco named Kok Chu

    last name first, first name last…all bad.

  34. Shawn
    May 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    I knew a guy who changed his name to Tronster. Yeah he was that big a fan of the movie TRON.

  35. Josh
    May 20th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

    You totally forgot Wonderful Terrific Monds III…

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Wonderful_Terrific_Monds

  36. Jonathan
    May 20th, 2008 at 10:55 pm

    My wife had a parent try to enroll her kid in school and her kid’s name was Shithead. It was pronounced Sha-Theed.

    She was in 3rd grade and apparently this isn’t all that rare outside the U.S.

  37. STOCKBOY HAN SOLO
    May 20th, 2008 at 11:53 pm

    YEAH, LEIA AND I ARE GONNA NAME OUR NEXT KID “STAR KILLAH”

    LooL361

  38. missingmanila
    May 20th, 2008 at 11:54 pm

    i know someone named Nimrod. His parents are complete nimrods if you ask me.

  39. HPTW
    May 21st, 2008 at 12:12 am

    While doing family research I found a relative named “Henry Pinkey Toomey Whaley”. Poor guy.

  40. HPTW
    May 21st, 2008 at 12:13 am

    Also I once had an asian customer named “Shining Wang”.

  41. tomz9
    May 21st, 2008 at 1:05 am

    a teacher’s wife once saw a kid named “Femolly” — spelled “Female”

  42. How could you miss
    May 21st, 2008 at 1:25 am

    How in the world could you miss this name:

    Atheist Evolution Rollason

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Atheist+Evolution+Rollas on&btnG=Search

  43. SantaBJ
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:46 am

    Yay, funny names! I got a few of those…

    Yorgei (combine that with the apparently “common” Shithead, and you got yourself one awesome name! Man, you’d be impervious to internets insults!)
    Odd Wang (seriously! Norwegian name…)
    Anass Rhammar (some taxi driver)
    Chew Kok (also a taxi driver)

  44. ZaheerEN
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:56 am

    The funny thing about “batman bin superman” is that ‘bin’ is used to denote son of. Now thats an interesting concept..

  45. LALA
    May 21st, 2008 at 3:06 am

    I’ll not forget this one until the day I die:
    Bloomer Waddle Lemon

    I was working at a sporting goods store in 1976; my job was to fill out deer hunting licenses and collect money for same. This required a driver’s license, so for 8 hours a day people shoved their license at me along with $8 and I wrote out licenses without having time to even look up at the line of custies. But when the license read “Bloomer Waddle Lemon” came across my counter, I did take a sneakpeak at the guy. He was HUGE so I did not so much as crack a smile.

  46. Frank Wer
    May 21st, 2008 at 6:49 am

    I work for a govt dept and see hundreds or thousands of names a day. My current favorites:

    Philomena Finger
    Rainbow Sunshine
    Patty Cake
    Pat Tittums
    John Toogood

  47. License Farm
    May 21st, 2008 at 11:46 am

    In my college town there was supposedly a woman employed at the local Wal*Mart named Marijuana Pepsicola Jackson. The story went that she was named after her parents two favorite things. Her nametag at Wal*Mart read “Mary Jane.” I never independently verified this story, but it’s too good not to repeat.

  48. Steve
    May 21st, 2008 at 11:56 am

    I was just back home (Stevens Point, WI) a few weeks ago and the records section of the paper indicated that a Denni Jo Brown had changed her name to “Poindexter Fat Majesty McBean”

  49. TitanicX
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm

    Makes me feel better for naming my daughter Shuantxhis (pronounced shu-wan-si). My next daughter will be named Katana Amidala (yes after that Amidala!) or if its a boy will be Mace Angelus (my wife’s pregnant as we speak!)

  50. joeyfaggtard
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm

    how about asshole (pronounced ash-ole-ie) or shithead (pronounced shith-ayd)?

  51. Stewie Larkin
    May 21st, 2008 at 5:44 pm

    A friend that worked as a telephone solicitor told me she ran across a gentleman named Sargent Toiletface,might be true don’t know for sure.

  52. Thomas
    May 22nd, 2008 at 2:26 am

    William “Pete” Peterson III.

    There are several problems with this real but seemingly normal name.
    1) there were no William Petersons, either Sr. or Jr.
    2) Pete is in quotations marks on the birth certificate.
    3) Peterson is not the last name of either parent.
    4) William is a girl.

    I can personally vouch for the authenticity of this name. The mother had several children who had to be taken from her custody, as she was schizophrenic and kept having kids. Her other children had names like Inches and Emer Gency (it came to her as if in a vision when she was on her way into the emergency room).

  53. Charles George
    May 22nd, 2008 at 8:06 am

    A famous norwegian kitch painter is named Odd Nerdroom hehe thats pretty funny!
    we also have names like (a grils name i norway) Randi Sør Aas which pronounced in english becomes…

    strangley the britts find my name quite funny, cant see why…

  54. Kai
    May 30th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    A client at my work is named God-fearing Phillipe

  55. Darlehen
    May 31st, 2008 at 6:25 pm

    Well… Sometimes I see family names like “gay” in the US, this would never happen in Europe haha.

    Or some Europe family names can be shocking in English spoken countries as well :)

  56. namepolice
    May 31st, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    I happened to stumble on a white supremecy message board the other day and evidently a baby born named Aryan Justice POOOR baby what a life that will be! A few yrs ago there was a female on the most wanted list where i live named Lasagna hmmm wonder what mom and dad where thinking about?
    People please yell the names you are considering for your child before you name them!

  57. Ronnie Red Knob
    June 14th, 2008 at 1:15 am

    There is a kid that used to go to my school called.
    ” Jack Daniels Witzkie” his mums a alcoholic so it makes it even funnier.

  58. Austelle
    June 14th, 2008 at 6:43 am

    Well, my friend has this classmate whose name is pronounced “Chewing gum”! It’s probably something like Chew Ying Gam? It’s chinese, so “Chew” is the surname and “Ying Gam” is her own name.

  59. Clarky
    June 14th, 2008 at 7:13 am

    You Forgot Dusan Mandick… Rofl

  60. sierramystery
    June 14th, 2008 at 8:19 am

    My dentist is named Dr. Royal Fink. and he lives up to his name. I have since changed dentists.

  61. That Guy
    June 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am

    Dick Trickle, the famous racecar driver
    my 7th grade science teacher, Dick Munch
    some guy that my family used to go to church with, Dick Ball
    random guy i saw on the news, Hymen Shocker

  62. m
    June 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Batman superman is my favourte.
    If only he lived in one of these places, it;d be even more brilliant:
    http://theworldofm.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/rudest-place/

  63. richard
    June 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 am

    Batman is not a common Malay name, but Suparman is. It was Arabicized later into Suferman. There is no general Arabic letter for ‘p’, the closest is ‘f’.

  64. aurora
    October 30th, 2008 at 5:46 am

    I just took a snapshot of this poor schmuck’s bcard this weekend:
    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4813677&l=a6d53&id=763880564

  65. john k.
    November 6th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    a friend of my dad,in san diego,passed on maybe,10yrs now,,MR RICHARD B. LITTLE,,,i swear,lookit up,lol,,

  66. Noais Winter Ogden
    November 29th, 2008 at 12:35 am

    my family is in the hall of fame for unusual names it started with my grandpa and grandma they named all there children strange names and there kids named there kids weird names and there kids named there kids wierd names and hopefully my kids will do the same here are the names my uncle : mars light ogden,he had no kids. my aunt: nebula vortex ogden : her kids: Oxen Portal Common, Pilot craft common, earthling eath common. my dad : Morrowind {before the game!) Blake ogden, his kids : um me noais winter ogden, my brother , Gray

  67. hdub
    December 17th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon. what the heck is that?!?!?!?!? lol worst name of all time

  68. kelli
    December 27th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

    yea well my name is niloofaer godshjebachkloou

  69. Toean
    February 18th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    About Batman Bin Suparman.

    Well, Batman name maybe oddly for Javanese but Suparman is enough well known name in Indonesia and dont relate with the hero, Superman.

  70. koalalicious
    February 25th, 2009 at 3:32 am

    I went to high school with a lovely Chinese girl named Dodo Chen…
    You’d think Dodo is bad enough, but she pronounced it “Doodoo” and would actually correct people if they said it wrong!

  71. michel jordan
    March 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    Dick assman is an american hero even if he is not american

  72. Rina
    March 30th, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    I had a good friend named “Candy Metallica”. She passed away in the Tsunami Dec, 2004.

  73. Tom Knight
    March 31st, 2009 at 9:24 am

    In Iowa in the early 1970’s there was a girl who played basketball for a small high school. Her name was Fonda Dicks. For several years, when the girls high school basketball tournament was in Des Moines, the wags at the Des Moines Register managed to include her picture in the tourney coverage.

  74. eroe777
    March 31st, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    I used to have a pretty big collection when I worked for a local department store that has since become Macy’s. Some of the best include:

    Scab Dover
    Luke Skywalker
    Velvet Ribbon
    Rockets Redglare
    Caramel apple
    Bobby Badboy
    Andrew Bigmeat (one of my all time favorites)

    There’s a guy in Minneapolis named Stu Pid. His phone number was in the book until a radio station discovered him. Now he’s unlisted.

  75. Jayla
    June 29th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    Lol I kno sum1 named Tigerass.Pronounces exactly as it’s spelled!


PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT

Neatorama Comment Policy
You don't have to register or login to comment, but it's easier if you do so. Comments aren't censored, but those that are abusive or off-topic may be edited or deleted.


Stay updated on the comments with Comment RSS