1011: Baby Names

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Baby Names
I've been trying for a couple years now but I haven't been able to come up with a name dumber than 'Renesmee'.
Title text: I've been trying for a couple years now but I haven't been able to come up with a name dumber than 'Renesmee'.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Not all the names have explanations.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The punchline for this one is in the title text as Renesmee is the name of Renesmee Cullen, who is the baby born in the book and movie, Breaking Dawn to parents Edward and Bella. Edward and Bella get "Renesmee" from an amalgamation of the names of Bella's mother, Renée, and Edward's adoptive mother, Esme.

Randall's point above stands. All those names are terrible, but not nearly as terrible as the name Renesmee.

A further analysis on baby names are presented by Randall at his Blag (Blog) here: The Baby Name Wizard.

  • Ponzi - An Italian surname, most often associated with "Ponzi scheme".
  • Eeemily
  • Fire Fire
  • Chipotla - A reference to chipotle seasoning.
  • Astamouthe - Could be pronounced "Ass to mouth"
  • Eggsperm - A child is conceived by combining an egg and a sperm, this child's name is conceived by combining the names of the two things.
  • [sound of record scratch] - This cannot be spelled or reliably pronounced.
  • Parsley - A seasoning
  • Hot'n'Juicy Ann -
  • Ovari - Female reproductive organ.
  • Friendly - When referring to her possessions it would create confusion with the restaurant Friendly's.
  • Sean (pronounced "seen") - Defies standard pronunciation.
  • Joyst

Transcript

[Cueball sits at a desk, thinking with his hand on his chin, his other hand holding a pen over a piece of paper. Megan stands behind him, looking over his shoulder, also with her hand on her chin.]
[Above the drawing is the list they are writing by hand.]
Names for daughter
  1. Ponzi
  2. Eeemily
  3. Fire Fire
  4. Chipotla
  5. Astamouthe
  6. Eggsperm
  7. [sound of record scratch]
  8. Parsley
  9. Hot'n'Juicy Ann
  10. Ovari
  11. Friendly
  12. Sean (pronounced "seen")
  13. Joyst


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Discussion

"Old lady" names like Edith or Margaret are also pretty awful for a girl. She's gonna have to live her early years with a name that makes her sound like she's 50. Davidy22[talk] 13:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

There's a young Margaret in A Wrinkle in Time. Also, I know a young woman named Margaret. However, I can hardly imagine a worse name than Bertha. Dfeuer (talk) 16:09, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Remember that they are only "Old Lady" names because they were popular baby names 50 years ago! In 50 years time people will say don't name your child Hunter! That's a grandpa name! (Yes people actually call their sons that!) --LostFire (talk) 09:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I once met a man in his mid-50s named Austin. For half his life he got people commenting on how old-fashioned his name is, and for the other half he's gotten people saying when they saw his name on the list they were expecting a kid.173.245.52.70 01:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm from Brazil and I find interesting that the concept of names that makes children feel much older exists in other languages. 108.162.254.119 03:47, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

It's common to pretty much all cultures, name fads come and go. In Brazil, for example, you don't see many girls named "Lourdes", or old men named "Felipe". --108.162.210.241 15:18, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Interestingly this problem seems (to me) to be relatively unexistant in Poland. This seems to be helped by our attitude to name variants (i.e. considering them same name in most cases). 141.101.89.216 21:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
What... I'm from Poland and I think this does exist in Poland Take Stefan, Kasimierz, Władysław etc. I even found this article: http://www.edziecko.pl/ciaza_i_porod/1,79473,18054856,Helena__Aniela__Kazimierz_i_Wladyslaw__stare_imiona.html

I suspect "friendly" is so it would play out in introductions as such: "Nice to meet you. I'm friendly." --108.162.225.148 14:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Still can't think of a name dumber than 'Renesmee'. 'North West' comes close. 108.162.221.53 02:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

My friend married a man named "Durr." First child was named Kathy. I suggested Corianne for the second 173.245.63.146 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I have a friend who was briefly called Parsley. When she was born, her Grandfather got the call instead of her Grandmother, and reported that her name as "Parsley". He then went straight back to sleep, leaving the Grandmother quite frustrated. After reading this comic, she felt sort of famous. 108.162.221.77 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Technically, "Sean" should have an accent on the 'a', so that it is pronounced "Shawn". It's a transliteration of "John" into the alphabet that was in use in Ireland a couple of centuries ago. If you leave out the accent, it's a different word, a prefix meaning "old" and pronounced "shan". Using family names as given names is also a thing. "Kim" is a nice name for a girl... but in N Korea? And finally "Joyst" as a reference to "Joyce" recalls the arts graduate from Dublin looking for a job as a builder... "The difference between a joist and a girder? Well, Joist wrote Ulysses and Girder wrote Faust"162.158.38.208 21:35, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Guys "Astamouth" is definitely worse than "Renesmee". 162.158.111.13 07:47, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

There is currently a very famous child who is named a wifi password and I think this comic is much funnier because of it. 172.68.38.44 01:29, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Elon Musk's child has an even more weird name. [citation needed] ColorfulGalaxy (talk) 21:12, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

i have a friend called agahar. i know, it's a weird name An user who has no account yet (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

In response to the comment attached to this edit, I must admit that I still say "chipotle" to rhyme with "bottle". Self-consciously... didn't know what it was when I first encountered it, and even now that I know it rhymes with "outlay" I rarely go with that at the stressful point of deciding which sauce(s) I want on my sub/whatever. People more right than me could still easily cut it short with a schwa, much as "bottler"(/"botla"), or another short-high vowel. So I can indeed believe it could become "chipotla" (however they pronounce that, in their accent) for them. 172.70.90.53 13:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)