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Baby Names
Real Names vs Fake Names
On this board everyone always talks about real names and how much they hate made up names. I am hoping someone can answer my question about this.
What constitutes a "real name" rather than a fake or made up name?
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Re: Real Names vs Fake Names
Real name: Sophia
Made up name: Nevaeh
Typically unique spellings, hybrid names - I went to school with a girl named Lilnelle because it combined her grandmother names or word names (Apple, Bear, etc) - would constitute made up names.
Whatever we deem so. (haha)
I tend to think made up names are the ones that look thrown together. And/or have 'replacement' letters (y's for other vowels) H's thrown in. Phonetical spellings: EN for Ian.
Some cultural names can appear to be in these groups, and typically are the 'traditional' spellings however dependign on where you live- won't go over well anyway. (think gaelic/celtic names) Even sometimes people on these boards will not know that certain names are real names and actually are the 'real' (i.e. tradtional spellings)
Schuler= Skylar.
Words that are indeed, words, however not usually names of people: Crimefighter.
Squished names: Joanne (for Joe and Ann, works; however Mattanne, not so much.)
Its more of a guide, than a code. per se.
Sometimes people on this board don't account for the fact that we have a living language that does evolve somewhat over time, and sometimes names do make a change from one sex to the other gradually... or spellings may very gradually change.... (My baby's middle name will be Louis, after his great-grandfather, who had the traditional old Germanic spelling of Alois... can you imagine how baby name purists back in the day must have reacted when people began regularly dropping the "A"?).
That said, I do think Nevaeh and similar names are just made up out of nowhere and they are very much NMS...
the way people on here talk about Real Names i expected a rule book or something
thanks for setting me straight!
I'm not considering anything that was not on the SS names index in 1950 (the full one that lists every name used more than 5 times - not just the top 1000). Just my personal preference - I want something that has been around for a while.
I have a friend who named her daughter after the word for "sunrise/dawn" in the language of the country where she served her Peace Corps term. It's a "made up" name - a beautiful, easy to spell made up name that I think is great. I'm not opposed to all made up names. Just the stupid ones
behindthename.com is a decent start for a rule book (sorry, no clicky I'm on a Mac)
Yeah, if you're only interested in reading about boring traditional names that have been used and re-used by the same people for the past 100 yrs (no offense to anyone who likes traditional names).
I'm sorry, but that website is not good for anyone looking for an ethnic name, IMO.
Anyway, what a makes a name real, IMO, is whether or not it actually exists, meaning I actually run a Google search on name to see if the name is made-up or if its just ethnic or rare. The reason why I do this b/c I've seen people post a lot of names that I like or find interesting only to see those same names get flamed for sounding made up when in reality a lot of the names are just ethnic names that no one has ever heard of b/c they're not familiar with that culture. If I'm able to find absolutely nothing on a name or if all I can find is definition stating that the name was made up, then I assume that a name is made up and go on to decide whether or not I like it. Usually, I don't.
If nobody else on the planet has that name, it's probably made up. As a teacher, I see so many names that make me want to cry for that child because you know their parents thought it was so adorably cute but nobody knows how to spell it, say it, and kids make fun of them.