...Oh brother, they named their kid what?!?-Part I

As a parent, I have a pet peeve with kids' names. I'd say that when it comes to names, I'm a bit of a traditionalist.

The other day at the park, I heard a mom call out to her kid whose name happened to be "Wrigley". Wrigley?? Can you imagine, "Come here 'chewing gum', come here!" What kind of name is that? I know that I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but I have a pent-up frustration with the names I hear when I'm out and about. I think to myself, "What poor kids!"

I've found a few sites that already do the work of humorously examining and critiquing bad names.

"The Bad Baby Names Blog"

"Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing"

I suppose my awareness of bad kids names became heightened when I lived in Germany, where it's against the law to name your kid whatever you want. If the name you choose isn't on a list of nationally recognized names, then you don't get to name your child that name. Sweden also had similar restrictions in place, but a court struck down the law prohibiting parents from naming kids "Lego", "Metallica", and "Ikea". "Elvis" was on the list too, but this one is o.k. I guess (click here for the article).

One of my wife's aunts once said, "Every parent has the right to mess up their kids however they want"; while each parent does their best at raising their own kids, with the usual struggles and milestones that make parents proud, naming your kid is for life, and I think parents really need to think this one through.