Hm…I don’t know. I think terrible names are popular enough presently that when the generation being born right now is school-aged, a McKeinsleigh will probably need to use a last initial in class to not get her confused with the other one(s).
Very much this. The people who make these kinds of posts forget that this is how names are invented and evolved.
People who complain about what can be termed “Tragedeigh” names seem to be fine with “Kayleigh” and “Ashleigh”, despite both being a later variation on “Kayley” and “Ashley”, with the former not becoming popular until the 80s - and because of a song, at that.
In general, people have a very hard time with the idea that language in general, and names specifically, evolve over time. Whatever was commonplace until they reach, say, their 30s is what’s “right”. Any variation after that is “wrong”. When, of course, it was just as mutable when they were young and before they were born, but they weren’t around for the latter and were equally mutable when they were themselves young.
There can often be an unpleasant class/race undertone to it as well.
Expect those examples you gave appeared due to mixing of standard phonetics of different languages. They where two normal things spelled correctly pushed together.
That’s where the VAST majority of change in language and names comes from. Spellings, or sounds picked up from other languages due to mixed language or dialect households.
So even the new spelling is still normal by the standards of the environment it came from.
Many of the recent nonsense names are entirely abnormal in their origin. Having no root in language, dialect, religion, history or culture.
They are entirely bullshit made up nonsense. Which is NOT normal historically. Even naming after a video game character with a weird name is more normal than what’s been happening.
What’s not standard about the phonetics of Emmaleigh? Or Graycyn, for that matter, to go with the example in the screnshot?
“Gray” is a word, and even an extant first name (Gray Davis, for example, or Gray O‘Brien). “Cyn” is a common syllable, like in “cynic”, but it’s also a name itself - it’s a common nickname to shorten “Cyndy” or “Cyntha” (eg Madame Cyn or Cyn Santana).
Having no root in language, dialect, religion, history or culture.
This part was important, it’s not just phonetics.
Emmaleigh
This is still a dumbass name that serves no purpose but to reveal the parents’ ignorance and desire to give their kid a “unique” name. You can make a case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley. Emmaleigh is just try hards desperate to be different.
“Gray” is a word, and even an extant first name (Gray Davis, for example, or Gray O‘Brien). “Cyn” is a common syllable, like in “cynic”, but it’s also a name itself - it’s a common nickname to shorten “Cyndy” or “Cyntha” (eg Madame Cyn or Cyn Santana).
You’re fine with Graycyn, right?
This sort of thought process is, as I understand it, exactly what @Holytimes@sh.itjust.works is complaining about. Graycyn is stupid as fuck. Yeah, I could name my kind Pterry or Psimon and say “Yeah, but we have words like pterodactyl and psychic, so it’s consistent with other exceptions to the standards of English orthography,” but it would still be stupid as fuck and cruel to name a kid that.
I think you would have a better argument with people naming their kids Khaleesi or something. Yeah, it’s not a name that I would give to a kid, but it’s already entered the language as an explicit borrowing of a character’s title that entered popular culture. I don’t see how that’s any different than something like a person learning French and deciding they prefer the name Guillaume to William and naming their kids that. Deciding you want to name your kid Mychael, or Mathyew, or Jeze🔔, or something because your child is just too precious to share a name with all the plebs who have the same name with a conventional spelling isn’t some grand evolution of language, nor does it add any novel meaning to the name. All it does it let people know that your kid is the child of a couple of feckless muppets.
I gave examples of having a root in language - specifically, the English language.
But, okay, a name has to have all of those things when coined to not be stupid. That would mean that you have equal disdain for Vanessa? It was coined by Jonathan Swift. It has none of the things you claim are important. It’s just a combination of two syllables taken from a friend’s last and first name - Esther Vanhomrigh. Myra? Coined by Fulke Greville, it’s just an anagram of “Mary”. Wendy? Coined by J. M. Barrie, it’s taken from a young girl mispronouncing the word “friend” as “fwendy”.
There’s plenty more. I’m sure you’re equally annoyed by all of these, rather than accepting them as perfectly fine and normal because they were coined before you were born.
This is still a dumbass name that serves no purpose but to reveal the parents’ ignorance and desire to give their kid a “unique” name.
I mean, at least you’ve dropped the facade that you have a reasoned, linguistic rationale for your dislike and are now leaning into “it’s stupid because I personally don’t like it”.
You can make the case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley.
[…]the Old English (OE) noun lēah, described as ‘incomparably the commonest topographical term in English place-names’ (Gelling and Cole 2014: 220), and usually appearing in place-names ending in current spellings of -ley, -ly, or -leigh[…]
Graycyn is stupid as fuck.
Again, it’s good to see you dropping the pretence of having a reasoned position.
Deciding you want to name your kid Mychael, or Mathyew, or Jeze🔔, or something because your child is just too precious to share a name with all the plebs who have the same name with a conventional spelling isn’t some grand evolution of language, or does it add any novel meaning to the name.
You’re right, spellings should only change if it also changes the meaning of the word. That’s why I shame people for calling their children Amy rather than the original Aimee; Edith rather than Eadgyth; Alice rather than Aalis; Walter/Walther rather than Waldhar; and so many more.
You’re definitely right about Emmaleigh. The only proper way to spell it is Emelye. All subsequent spelling changes is just hipsters who aren’t changing the meaning at all. Imagine calling your daughter a stupid as fuck, dumbass name like “Emily”! For shame!
people have a very hard time with the idea that language in general […] evolve[s] over time
Writing is not language. Speaking is language (edit: in this particular case), and there’s no phonetic change here. If a spelling is due to another language that the parents, or really anyone, speak, that’s fine. But if your language (read: English) has such a terrible spelling system that people can do these things completely arbitrarily and the spelling is still somewhat readable, there’s something wrong with that writing system (not with the people!)
Writing is absolutely part of language. If your point is that English has weird, illogical spelling rules, then you’re right. That’s not a new observation. People have been writing about that since spelling was standardised.
And it’s been changing for a very long time.
How do you feel when you see the name “Amy”. Do you dislike it? What if I told you that the original spelling in English was “Aimee”? “Amee” was also very common once upon a time. “Amy” was a much later spelling and was once considered a cringey, trendy “Tragedeigh”. As, as I said above, were Ashleigh & Kayleigh.
But you don’t think of them that way, because they’re now common. “Kayleigh” only gained popularity 40 years ago. “Ashleigh” is less than 100 years old. And already people don’t bat an eye at it. But they will at “Emmaleigh”, even though it’s exactly the same evolution.
What is or is not considered dumb in any particular culture is normally nothing more than a function of the age of that thing.
For example, Wendy is just considered a normal name today, but people were mocked for calling their daughters Wendy once upon a time. It was invented for the book Peter Pan and was derived from a child referring to their friend as their “Fwendy”.
Vanessa was once considered a stupid, trendy, quirky name, being another one taken from literature.
Cheryl - a combination of Cherie and Beryl. Melinda - a combination a Mel and Linda. Annabelle - a combination of Anna and Belle. Annabeth - guess what that’s a combination of?
All of those got the same push-back for being stupid and contrived. Yet now they’re just…names.
Give it 50 years and people called Khaleesi and Katniss will be talking about how stupid all these new names are, rather than sensible ones like thiers.
Hm…I don’t know. I think terrible names are popular enough presently that when the generation being born right now is school-aged, a McKeinsleigh will probably need to use a last initial in class to not get her confused with the other one(s).
Very much this. The people who make these kinds of posts forget that this is how names are invented and evolved.
People who complain about what can be termed “Tragedeigh” names seem to be fine with “Kayleigh” and “Ashleigh”, despite both being a later variation on “Kayley” and “Ashley”, with the former not becoming popular until the 80s - and because of a song, at that.
In general, people have a very hard time with the idea that language in general, and names specifically, evolve over time. Whatever was commonplace until they reach, say, their 30s is what’s “right”. Any variation after that is “wrong”. When, of course, it was just as mutable when they were young and before they were born, but they weren’t around for the latter and were equally mutable when they were themselves young.
There can often be an unpleasant class/race undertone to it as well.
Expect those examples you gave appeared due to mixing of standard phonetics of different languages. They where two normal things spelled correctly pushed together.
That’s where the VAST majority of change in language and names comes from. Spellings, or sounds picked up from other languages due to mixed language or dialect households.
So even the new spelling is still normal by the standards of the environment it came from.
Many of the recent nonsense names are entirely abnormal in their origin. Having no root in language, dialect, religion, history or culture.
They are entirely bullshit made up nonsense. Which is NOT normal historically. Even naming after a video game character with a weird name is more normal than what’s been happening.
What’s not standard about the phonetics of Emmaleigh? Or Graycyn, for that matter, to go with the example in the screnshot?
“Gray” is a word, and even an extant first name (Gray Davis, for example, or Gray O‘Brien). “Cyn” is a common syllable, like in “cynic”, but it’s also a name itself - it’s a common nickname to shorten “Cyndy” or “Cyntha” (eg Madame Cyn or Cyn Santana).
You’re fine with Graycyn, right?
This part was important, it’s not just phonetics.
This is still a dumbass name that serves no purpose but to reveal the parents’ ignorance and desire to give their kid a “unique” name. You can make a case for something like Ashleigh, where -leigh is used as an alternate spelling of the -ley from Ashley in all sorts of English place names, with the same meaning or a similar one as -ley has in the name Ashley. Emmaleigh is just try hards desperate to be different.
This sort of thought process is, as I understand it, exactly what @Holytimes@sh.itjust.works is complaining about. Graycyn is stupid as fuck. Yeah, I could name my kind Pterry or Psimon and say “Yeah, but we have words like pterodactyl and psychic, so it’s consistent with other exceptions to the standards of English orthography,” but it would still be stupid as fuck and cruel to name a kid that.
I think you would have a better argument with people naming their kids Khaleesi or something. Yeah, it’s not a name that I would give to a kid, but it’s already entered the language as an explicit borrowing of a character’s title that entered popular culture. I don’t see how that’s any different than something like a person learning French and deciding they prefer the name Guillaume to William and naming their kids that. Deciding you want to name your kid Mychael, or Mathyew, or Jeze🔔, or something because your child is just too precious to share a name with all the plebs who have the same name with a conventional spelling isn’t some grand evolution of language, nor does it add any novel meaning to the name. All it does it let people know that your kid is the child of a couple of feckless muppets.
I gave examples of having a root in language - specifically, the English language.
But, okay, a name has to have all of those things when coined to not be stupid. That would mean that you have equal disdain for Vanessa? It was coined by Jonathan Swift. It has none of the things you claim are important. It’s just a combination of two syllables taken from a friend’s last and first name - Esther Vanhomrigh. Myra? Coined by Fulke Greville, it’s just an anagram of “Mary”. Wendy? Coined by J. M. Barrie, it’s taken from a young girl mispronouncing the word “friend” as “fwendy”.
There’s plenty more. I’m sure you’re equally annoyed by all of these, rather than accepting them as perfectly fine and normal because they were coined before you were born.
I mean, at least you’ve dropped the facade that you have a reasoned, linguistic rationale for your dislike and are now leaning into “it’s stupid because I personally don’t like it”.
Okay, so, “-ly” is equally valid as an English place-name spelling varient of “leah”. Don’t believe me? Ask the English Place-Name Society: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/epns/documents/journal/49-2017/jepns49-2017-wager-95-126.pdf
Again, it’s good to see you dropping the pretence of having a reasoned position.
You’re right, spellings should only change if it also changes the meaning of the word. That’s why I shame people for calling their children Amy rather than the original Aimee; Edith rather than Eadgyth; Alice rather than Aalis; Walter/Walther rather than Waldhar; and so many more.
You’re definitely right about Emmaleigh. The only proper way to spell it is Emelye. All subsequent spelling changes is just hipsters who aren’t changing the meaning at all. Imagine calling your daughter a stupid as fuck, dumbass name like “Emily”! For shame!
Writing is not language. Speaking is language (edit: in this particular case), and there’s no phonetic change here. If a spelling is due to another language that the parents, or really anyone, speak, that’s fine. But if your language (read: English) has such a terrible spelling system that people can do these things completely arbitrarily and the spelling is still somewhat readable, there’s something wrong with that writing system (not with the people!)
Writing is absolutely part of language. If your point is that English has weird, illogical spelling rules, then you’re right. That’s not a new observation. People have been writing about that since spelling was standardised.
And it’s been changing for a very long time.
How do you feel when you see the name “Amy”. Do you dislike it? What if I told you that the original spelling in English was “Aimee”? “Amee” was also very common once upon a time. “Amy” was a much later spelling and was once considered a cringey, trendy “Tragedeigh”. As, as I said above, were Ashleigh & Kayleigh.
But you don’t think of them that way, because they’re now common. “Kayleigh” only gained popularity 40 years ago. “Ashleigh” is less than 100 years old. And already people don’t bat an eye at it. But they will at “Emmaleigh”, even though it’s exactly the same evolution.
I don’t have a problem with language and names evolving, I have a problem with them evolving into something dumb.
What is or is not considered dumb in any particular culture is normally nothing more than a function of the age of that thing.
For example, Wendy is just considered a normal name today, but people were mocked for calling their daughters Wendy once upon a time. It was invented for the book Peter Pan and was derived from a child referring to their friend as their “Fwendy”.
Vanessa was once considered a stupid, trendy, quirky name, being another one taken from literature.
Cheryl - a combination of Cherie and Beryl. Melinda - a combination a Mel and Linda. Annabelle - a combination of Anna and Belle. Annabeth - guess what that’s a combination of?
All of those got the same push-back for being stupid and contrived. Yet now they’re just…names.
Give it 50 years and people called Khaleesi and Katniss will be talking about how stupid all these new names are, rather than sensible ones like thiers.