Say my name, say my name

At Easter brunch we got to talking about names. We are referring to our future daughter who we'll be bringing home from China in approximately 18-24 months as LingLing. For a few reasons:

1. It is much easier and more fun to say LingLing when we speak of her than to constantly say our future daughter who we'll be bringing home from China in approximately 18-24 months.

2. Our last name rhymes with Ling and if you know our last name and say it with LingLing as the first name you'll realize how ridiculous of a name that would be for a child.

3. We've already chosen a forever name for LingLing, but we are keeping that secret. Adoption means so much isn't secret, no surprises. If you give birth you can wait and see if you're having a girl or a boy and that is a HUGE surprise (Jake was a wait and see). So by keeping her name secret we at least have that.

So we shared our decision with family on Sunday (Jon's aunt & uncle & cousin were there at the inlaws, as well as a couple Marsha & Larry who are very close family friends- we think of them as our cool aunt and uncle fate forgot to give us). And we answered a lot of questions. And it was so great to see how excited everyone is! There's already talk of how spoiled Lingling will be, and how to decorate the nursery, etc.

And then the conversation turned to names and it was so funny, and yet so horrifying to hear what real people actually named their children. I swear to you it seems like people are just throwing sounds and letters together with no regard to spelling or how their children will deal with these names. Everyone seems to have known someone with a terrible name and here are the ones we heard on Sunday: (they are all true I swear!) & (I've left off last names to protect these poor souls)

-Shasta

-Valencia

-Princess

-Unique (pronounced Unikay)

-Dorkus (a girl!)

-Janel (a boy!)

-Early May (guess when she was born)

-Kids who's parents have gone nuts with spelling- Breeahnnah (why not just Brianna?) Charee (supposed to be Cherie the french name)

Then we started talking about unfortunate pairings of first and last names.

-Cherry Berry (the lady who signs off on the safety of elevators. I've seen her name every time I ride one).

-J. Peter Seaman (say it outloud then wonder why not use whatever the J stands for?)

-Harry Butts (asked Marsha out in high school)

-Blank Beaver (I dated this guy for 4 years. I won't publish his first name, but nothing goes well with Beaver. Thank God his name wasn't Harry. It all got out of control when I had to place a take out order for Beaver at Cluck U chicken in New Jersey. Oy.)

-and the prize for most unfortunate name heard on Easter Sunday goes to: Ima Hoar . (went to high school with Larry) Poor, poor girl.

So- what crazy names have you heard? Please share!