Hello everyone:
Have you ever wondered what some parents were thinking when they named their children? Having taught in the halls of higher education for eighteen years, I sure have.
For example (and I have plenty of these!), I recently had a student whose name always reminded me of a dangerous medical condition some pregnant women have- preeclampsia. Now, that wasn’t really the individual’s actual name, but every time I saw the person’s presence in the class, that’s what I thought of. For the record, I have absolutely no idea if the person was male or female.
Another dear student had a name that autocorrected to profanity every time I typed it. I will not share what that name was, but I had to pause each time I typed it and make sure that I corrected the correction. And this was before AI stepped in to tell us how to write!
And then there’s the creative speller parent who gives his or her child a perfectly normal name but whose weird spelling means that child will never find his or her name on a coffee mug. I adore my parents, but how do you spell “Sheri?” Until I was an adult, I never found my name spelled correctly. I saw Sherry, Shari, Sherri, and you-name-it-I’ve-seen-my-name-spelled-like-that, but never “Sheri.” To this day, I must spell my name when I’m at Chic-fil-A or give in and let them spell it however they want. If they say it right when my order’s ready, that’s what’s important, right? Sometimes I say, “it’s spelled like ‘sheriff’ with the ff’s off.” It’s amazing how many people don’t know how to spell “sheriff.”
There are other examples, as well. You can google “weird spellings of normal names” and find list after list of ways to spell Connor, Katelyn, Aubrey, and the like. When I was in the hospital after delivering my second son, my roommate was on the phone, saying they were going to name their new baby boy Ryan. They weren’t going to use the traditional spelling, though. No, nothing so boring for them. After she hung up, I asked her “How do you spell Sheri?” She never got it right. I told her Ryan, with her off the wall spelling, would not be amused. She reconsidered. You’re welcome, Ryan.
When looking for a name for my characters, I figure out that person’s year of birth and look for popular baby names for that year. There are only two characters I have not done that for: Kurt and Brooke. Kurt got his name because it describes his character. Brooke is so named because her paternal grandmother died in a creek. Since “creek” is not a usual girl’s name, anywhere outside of California, she became “Brooke.” Now you know the rest of that story.
Best,
Dr. Sheri