What do y'all think?

thekristenkay

One of my friends and his fiancé are having a baby. A girl. They asked me to be the godmother (yay!) but I really really REALLY dislike the name they have picked out. Neither are family names or anything like that. Am I crazy? Is it like...closet cute or something? Or am I actually sane? (I can't tell anymore!)

Katura Rallston (LN start with P. Pretty common)

Helenahhandbasket

Sounds like the name of a Thundercat.

joyfullyfound

Horrible. But it's not your place to say anything, just in case you're thinking about it. Maybe NN Katy?

NerdyLucy

Have they mentioned where they got the names?

kje120

Awful name

thekristenkay

Joy2611 said:

What is a Katura?

It sounds like a name from a critter in the bob cat species, me thinks.

Jags8

joyfullyfound said:

Horrible. But it's not your place to say anything, just in case you're thinking about it. Maybe NN Katy?

This

DanandVan

I know Keturah is a biblical name (I believe Abraham's wife after Sarah). I guess it could be worse? She could go by Kate or Kat? But yeah, it's kinda out there!

CallaLily25

Wow. Horrible.

capulet

NerdyLucy said:

Have they mentioned where they got the names?

I would just ask them - like, "oh, that's an interesting name, I've never heard it before. How did you choose it?" DD's name is my mom's maiden name, which is very unusual, and I don't mind when people ask where it's from.

FutureMrsW9

That's awful.  BUT, and this might get me shunned, is it an ethnic name?  I hear a TON of weird names where I work, but I also work with a lot of foreign people - lots of people from India and Japan, so in their home countries their names aren't weird at all.  If it's not a different ethnicity, then I would say it's terrible...sounds like made up letters just all jumbled together.

evaazalea

I'm more curious about Rallston, if it's not a family name where did they get that and why use it?

BulgariHeart

You would think they'd at least give the poor girl a decent MN!

saham07

Isn't Rallston a brand of dog food?

Ashleypixie

I wonder where that came from. It sounds like a cartoon character or a small, fleshy growth on your body. Are you asking if you ever do become legal guardian whether you should change her name? Cause, no. But no, I wouldn't say that name was closet cute either.

unstuck6jb

Oh that's really terrible.  Katura sounds like the name of a galaxy or something.  Rallston is the last name of my son's pediatrician!  I almost can't imagine a worse name!  Yikes!  Hopefully they call her Kat or Katy at least.  

12bailey18

I went to school with a Keturah. While horrendous, at least it is an actual name. That middle name sounds like a last name. I'm sure people will ask her her whole life if it's a family name, lol.,

thekristenkay

FutureMrsW9 said:

That's awful.  BUT, and this might get me shunned, is it an ethnic name?  I hear a TON of weird names where I work, but I also work with a lot of foreign people - lots of people from India and Japan, so in their home countries their names aren't weird at all.  If it's not a different ethnicity, then I would say it's terrible...sounds like made up letters just all jumbled together.

I wish I could say it was. At least then it may make more sense to me if it were. I may get shunned too for that. Heh. Nope. We grew up in a very small, very Dutch community with very plain (and pretty!) names Anna, Sarah, Rachel, Jacob, Ryan, Tyler etc. ugh. Just ugh.

Worcbride

so I looked it up too--African, means "take the burden off my mind"  odd

blu-eyedwife

bromios said:

MauiBliss said:

I had to pull out the Tanakh for this one. Ketura is an ooooooold Hebrew name. Unless they are an old Jewish family or of Hebrew descent, I would side eye it. But, it's really probably not your place to say anything.

I don't read Hebrew, so is there a meaningful difference between Keturah (which I understand is the ancient name) and Katura? Do the rules of transliteration leave the vowels and aspiration up to interpretation like that (ancient Egyptian, for instance, doesn't actually have specifically designated vowels, so all transliterations are, to a certain extent, a matter of English convention)?

So the Torah itself is vowel free.  Ancient texts would likely be too.  There are vowels in Hebrew, and I don't know the history, but I would imagine like most language it began orally before being committed to writing, so in that sense the vowels came second to help describe the sound that was being made.  People were able to recognize writing without vowels (and still are) because of knowing the words/context.  (Like if I were to write The t_nt was in the w__ds in a story about camping you would probably recognize it should be tent and woods).

Knowing how a word sounds, however, means that in translating much of Hebrew into other languages (Greek/Latin) you're going to end up with different approximations of the same vowel. Like there's no long "i" in Hebrew, so the name is "Yeetz-ach" not "Isaac," but obviously everyone recognizes it's the same name.