What’s in a name? In this case, too many letters.
A parent has revealed the list of her child’s second-grade classmates, baffling people with some of their bizarrely spelled names.
The Redditor — who said they live in the Northeast in a rural area that, at times, “feels like the deep south” — rattled off names like “Skuyler,” “Emmitt” and “Kurstein,” pronounced “Kirsten,” in two different name forums, eliciting a raucous response.
“Rate the Names of my Second Grader’s Classmates,” she wrote on Reddit, explaining that she had received the list in order for her child to make Valentine’s.
The list also includes monikers like “Averiella,” “LaKendren,” “Raeleigh,” “Keegan,” “Kohen” and “Paisyn.” Some classmates also had more traditional names, like “Ella,” “Ian” and “Brooklyn.”
“Thoughts? Opinions? Prayers?” she wrote in another forum.
Fellow Redditors struggled to figure out the pronunciation of some of the names, calling the spelling “criminal.”
“I feel like some of these spellings should be considered a felony,” one bold commenter wrote. “Maybe that’s dramatic. Okay, a misdemeanor, but some of these are downright criminal.”
“First thought,” another chimed in. “Their parents are illiterate.”
“Half of these poor children are going to grow up having their names made fun of and mispronounced,” lamented someone else.”
The viral post comes amid a flurry of new-age baby names to ring in the new generation, Gen Beta.
For example, some parents are looking to their furry friends for inspiration, naming their children after dogs.
Meanwhile, others are choosing “luxurious” baby names or titles that sounds like weaponry, the latter a trend that has alarmed naming experts.
“Is this a trend with millennial parents, or has it always been like this?” inquired one Gen Zer on Reddit.
They said they “don’t remember” any of their classmates with unique monikers, adding that “even if the name was ‘made up’ it was at least easy to pronounce and spell.”
An older user, however, informed them that “sadly, tragedeighs plague every generation, it’s just the current trend in how they’re done.”
They explained that Boomers and Gen X favored swapping out names that traditionally end in “y” to end in “i,” such as “Sandi” or “Sherri,” while Millennials “got to enjoy a lot of surnames-as-first-names,” like “Madison.”
“Gen Z and younger are getting handfuls of Scrabble tiles as names these days,” they quipped.
