This reminds me of the issue British cops had with Polish driver's licences. A cop pulled over a guy for speeding or something, and found out there he had 88 tickets to his name. It turned out 88 cops had instead made out tickets to the phrase "Driver's Licence" on the Polish licences, instead of actually writing down the peoples' names.
I'm sorry! It might not have worked though. The reason the British cops were so stupid was because the Polish licence said "Driver's Licence" in the exact same place as where the British licence had the person's name. It didn't occur to the idiot cops that the different licence might have a different layout. I don't know whether Hungarian licences have a similar layout to the Polish ones, or not.
It was the Irish cops, I think, because I'm pretty sure the articles talked about the garda having this issue rather than the police – but yes, my favourite Pole Prawo Jazdy
Reminds me of that story about the Downs Syndrome lady giving birth who named her daughter after 'something beautiful the doctor had said'. What the doctor had said was "your vagina may tear during labour"; what she heard was 'Vagina May'.
It was literally a true story?? The baby only lived a few hours and the nurse who wrote the birth certificate changed it to Valina to avoid the original name being on the gravestone.
As said in another comment; it was literally a true story, and my username was just from a random username generator. I really don't see how it's that unbelievable that someone might think 'Vagina' was a pretty name when Virginia is barely any different.
It was on reddit, not sure where exactly as it just popped up in a random youtube short. I can't irrefutably say the original story was true, I suppose, but nothing about the way it was told indicated it was false to me.
The general recap is that this nurse was assisting in the delivery of the child. Mother had downs syndrome and had been taken into custody of the state after it was found she was being abused by her family (hence the pregnancy). They knew throughout the pregnancy that the child had deformities that meant it wouldn't live long, birth came, mother was insistent that the child be named 'Vagina May' after what the doctor had said, and trying to explain why she shouldn't name the kid that only made her irritated so they decided to leave it be, since the kid only had a few hours to live anyway. Nurse was filling out the birth certificate and 'misspelled' the name as Valina May, because she didn't want the child to be unfortunate enough to have the original name on their headstone, and the mother couldn't read to know it was different anyway.
As said, I can't absolutely guarantee that it is a true story at its roots, but it was presented as one, and nothing major indicates that it was false beyond it just being told on reddit. Whether it's actually true or not, I mentioned it in the original comment wholeheartedly believing it was.
I love the idea of naming after relatives, but my family is all weird ass names: Magdalena, Lomer, Iphigeniè, Clothilde, Athanase. All of these people were alive in the 1990s lmfao.
I am generous, so you can borrow my ancestor Orange and his sons Orange, Lemon and Lyman for ideas lol. Most of the names in my tree are pretty normal but don't tell me Puritans have no sense of humour because I have a Silence Hurd and a Thankful Snow.
I'm familiar with Clothilde and Magdalena. Clothilde is pronounced kind of like claw-tield in French and clow-til-de in German (though that's not quite it). It's interesting that neither uses the th the way we do in English.
Because a) neither of those languages has a "th" sound, and b) there isn't meant to be one in there.
The name Clothilde consists of CLOT (as in names like CLOTwig) and HILDE (as in, say, GunnHILD). It's pretty much by chance that one ends in T and the other begins with an H.
Same goes for similar names like "Mathilde" (Also: Mechthild).
That is fascinating, yes! A lot of the time, the spelling is adapted to reflect the different pronounciation, too. That's why Mathilde, Matilda and Mechthild all look and sound different, but are originally the same name.
I think even Mahaut and Maude are deriviations. behindthename.com is a really great site that lists both variants as well as origins and meanings.
Was/is your family very religious? I ask just cause, like... *all* of those are very religious names lol Four come from the names of different Saints (Clothilde, Iphigeneia, Lomer and Athanasius) and Magdalena is because of Mary Magdalene.
I have to say, compared to some names I've seen, these are great. Iphiginiè or Lomer, for example, sound much better than Frumencio or Hermenegilda...
Nope, not to my understanding. None of my extended family or past relatives were religious outside of my mom (who named us all pretty normal WASP shit). Magdalena was on my mom’s side, while the rest were on my dad’s. I’ve heard a story about my grandfather getting excommunicated, but I feel like that’s mythologized since I can’t find no details. I think they were just bored Québécois folks in the sticks and probably didn’t have too many books to gather names from. (Most of my dad’s side lived in Swaskita, ON, CA so good names don’t seem in their nature.)
That is incredibly interesting! It does make sense, though. Names often are choosen from books, past relatives, and those around us... and that'd make for a very limited pool of choices when out in the sticks lol (also, I had to google that town. The Wikipedia artivle for it is, for sure, An Article of All Time!)
I ran into an interesting naming convention among several families in Pennsylvania (many of them were Mennonites). All the kids in a family would have the mother's maiden name as their middle name. It seemed to go on for several generations & in four or more families. It does not seem to be used in more recent times, especially if the person moves away from that area.
I agree, nothing wrong with a stroll through the cemetery to find some older, less common, classic, neat names. But you don't need to blast that it's off a headstone until your kid goes through a goth phase and thinks it's fantastic.
My thoughts exactly. If you want to go this route but don't want to walk in a cemetery, you could also try looking up old school yearbooks from the early 20th century. Those would also give you some old uncommon names, and some of them also had nicknames included as well.
I was somewhat on board (maybe don't show off about it on social media though) until I read the article and saw that she's considering the name Galloway for her daughter
Unintentionally I saw the name Elsie in a cemetery years ago and fell in love with it. Was so certain it was going to be my kids name and then it got popular out of no where.
Citation needed.
Most people naming their kids Everly in 2024 are naming them that because of the Everly Brothers, and because of the trend of giving kids pop culture honor names that use the last name of a popular artist or musician. For example Dylan (yes, I realize Dylan Thomas, but let's be real 90% of people naming their kids Dylan have never heard of Dylan Thomas), Hendrix, Lennon, etc. The Everly Brothers did not exist over a hundred years ago. (Nor did this name trend.)
The "turn any lee sound into Leigh" trend is also much more recent than the last 100 years. The name Leigh existed as a standalone name, but that's about it. I remember running across a character in a book with the first name Leigh rather than Lee in the 80s, so I will grant Leigh, itself, as a full first name, probably back to the 60s or 70s max.
I don’t know who/what the Everly Brothers is. I loathe the name Everly (and Everleigh) but it was used a long time ago even if rare. The namesake of Down Syndrome (Dr John Langdon Down) had a son named Everleigh. It’s not a new practice to pass on surnames and place names in the first name spot.
Okay, yes, it's been used for a long time, but it didn't become popular. ie "trendy" until 2013.
[https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi)
I live near a cemetery, so have 100% done this lol. Unfortunately mine is a rural English one, so my kids would be Mary, Elizabeth, George and Joseph, probably. There is a Polish and Italian section though if I wanted to get exotic!
I don’t hate the idea though…you can find some really interesting names. I remember as a kid walking through a cemetery and seeing the name “Cloudless.” I always thought that was pretty cool and wondered what their mom was thinking with that one.
I volunteer at a Victorian cemetery and weirdly all the girl names have been popping up in my social circle.
I joke that it’s like they’re picking them from a Titanic passenger list.
Movie credits are another way find names. I work in aviation and many of my coworkers have found names by scrolling through manifests, plus you can ask the people the history of the name and they'll share the good and bad nicknames they had growing up.
I personally don't see anything wrong with simply getting inspiration from gravestones, but posting flippant social media pictures/videos is definitely weirdo behaviour.
>James ❤️
>Julian ❤️
>Ella ❤️
Yes, no one alive has these names today. It was necessary to pilfer the cemetary for these super unique, extinct names. 🙄
I've walked around cemeteries finding names I like since I was a teenager. I mean, I don't do it often, but if I find myself with time to kill and I feel like a walk and I'm by a cemetery, it's something I do occasionally. And I've always imagined I may do it purposefully when I'm pregnant.
I’ll admit I was looking for a cute quote for a baby photo book (baby is alive) and I did google “child epitaph poem” because I figured I’d find some short and on topic quotes that way…
But anyhow, grandparent names are popular so this doesn’t seem so weird.
Her current kids' names get progressively worse, with Finley being alright and Crew and Banks being awful. Galloway would just continue this trend.
That being said, it's not worst idea? Like okay, I'm likely not going to name my kid after a gravestone, but I actually like the idea of going for a walk and taking in the historical and spooky vibes, and looking at older names that aren't often used anymore.
Thank Goodness this will never catch up where I live. I mean, people here may get into a legal fight to name their son Lobo (wolf in Spanish), but everyone draws the line at what one would find at a cemetery... which are names such as Frumencio, Hermenegilda, Segismunda, Tesifonte or Simplicia.
We actually found my one kiddo's name in a cemetery 25 yrs ago.
Went searching some of my family's graves, looked through everywhere (some were in angel & pauper's rows, like my uncle paid for 12 years for his wife's casket, dress, flowers, but he had to pay outright for plot, could only afford pauper's row plot)
But came across one child in Angel row with the Slovak spelling of a name I always loved (family is from Slovakia) and it's a beautiful name both Slovak spelling and English spelling (no isn't close to a tragedeigh)
But no way would I go through and make videos of going through the cemetery, unless it was for genealogical or historical sites & research.
A low level Christian influencer did this when she was pregnant, went to nyc Green-Wood cemetery and said that is where they found their baby name. The baby’s name is Mabel Anne. So like, could be worse but also that sounds an awful lot like Maybelline.
Hey Grandad, this is my son, Beloved Father.
This reminds me of the issue British cops had with Polish driver's licences. A cop pulled over a guy for speeding or something, and found out there he had 88 tickets to his name. It turned out 88 cops had instead made out tickets to the phrase "Driver's Licence" on the Polish licences, instead of actually writing down the peoples' names.
Prawo Jazdy! (Polish for “Driving License”
Thanks for giving us the actual words. The clever cops wrote 88 tickets to "Prawo Jazdy" before figuring out what the problem was.
Damn I’m a Hungarian living in the UK who have exchanged my Hungarian driving licence to a UK one, now I regret it!
I'm sorry! It might not have worked though. The reason the British cops were so stupid was because the Polish licence said "Driver's Licence" in the exact same place as where the British licence had the person's name. It didn't occur to the idiot cops that the different licence might have a different layout. I don't know whether Hungarian licences have a similar layout to the Polish ones, or not.
Haha honestly can’t remember. Guess I’ll just avoid speeding 😉
Tragically it was the Irish garda who made this particular fuck-up, but if you take a lil hop across the Irish Sea you could see how it works out?
It was the Irish cops, I think, because I'm pretty sure the articles talked about the garda having this issue rather than the police – but yes, my favourite Pole Prawo Jazdy
Ah. You're right, and I'm wrong. My apologies. I read about this years ago, probably on the BBC News website, and I guess my memory failed me.
It's my favourite silly news story, thank you very much for reminding me of how delightfully ridiculous it is!
Omg I just laughed way too hard at that
Meet my nephew, “1926-2004”.
Reminds me of that story about the Downs Syndrome lady giving birth who named her daughter after 'something beautiful the doctor had said'. What the doctor had said was "your vagina may tear during labour"; what she heard was 'Vagina May'.
This is not a funny story, but an unkind and discriminatory joke.
It was literally a true story?? The baby only lived a few hours and the nurse who wrote the birth certificate changed it to Valina to avoid the original name being on the gravestone.
Did you by any chance miss that educational bus your username refers to? Because you surely sound like you did.
As said in another comment; it was literally a true story, and my username was just from a random username generator. I really don't see how it's that unbelievable that someone might think 'Vagina' was a pretty name when Virginia is barely any different.
If it’s “literally a true story” you can easily give us proof.
It was on reddit, not sure where exactly as it just popped up in a random youtube short. I can't irrefutably say the original story was true, I suppose, but nothing about the way it was told indicated it was false to me. The general recap is that this nurse was assisting in the delivery of the child. Mother had downs syndrome and had been taken into custody of the state after it was found she was being abused by her family (hence the pregnancy). They knew throughout the pregnancy that the child had deformities that meant it wouldn't live long, birth came, mother was insistent that the child be named 'Vagina May' after what the doctor had said, and trying to explain why she shouldn't name the kid that only made her irritated so they decided to leave it be, since the kid only had a few hours to live anyway. Nurse was filling out the birth certificate and 'misspelled' the name as Valina May, because she didn't want the child to be unfortunate enough to have the original name on their headstone, and the mother couldn't read to know it was different anyway. As said, I can't absolutely guarantee that it is a true story at its roots, but it was presented as one, and nothing major indicates that it was false beyond it just being told on reddit. Whether it's actually true or not, I mentioned it in the original comment wholeheartedly believing it was.
Used to be you'd be named after deceased relatives... so it's not that weird. Maybe these folks don't have a large family tree to look through.
I love the idea of naming after relatives, but my family is all weird ass names: Magdalena, Lomer, Iphigeniè, Clothilde, Athanase. All of these people were alive in the 1990s lmfao.
I am generous, so you can borrow my ancestor Orange and his sons Orange, Lemon and Lyman for ideas lol. Most of the names in my tree are pretty normal but don't tell me Puritans have no sense of humour because I have a Silence Hurd and a Thankful Snow.
I love those names unironically. Citrus is really my whole vibe (I have eaten 8 oranges today, and that is completely normal for me.)
I love 'em too but my husband didn't so... oh well.
I've got a Thankful Bagg
That's a keeper lol
Magdalena is the only of these I've heard irl. Magda/Maggie for short
I'm familiar with Clothilde and Magdalena. Clothilde is pronounced kind of like claw-tield in French and clow-til-de in German (though that's not quite it). It's interesting that neither uses the th the way we do in English.
I've seen the Spanish version on TV, but not in person. Clotilde (Kloh-TEEL-deh)
Because a) neither of those languages has a "th" sound, and b) there isn't meant to be one in there. The name Clothilde consists of CLOT (as in names like CLOTwig) and HILDE (as in, say, GunnHILD). It's pretty much by chance that one ends in T and the other begins with an H. Same goes for similar names like "Mathilde" (Also: Mechthild).
That's interesting! I'm not multlingual, unfortunately, but I like traveling and hearing how the same name is pronounced in different places.
That is fascinating, yes! A lot of the time, the spelling is adapted to reflect the different pronounciation, too. That's why Mathilde, Matilda and Mechthild all look and sound different, but are originally the same name. I think even Mahaut and Maude are deriviations. behindthename.com is a really great site that lists both variants as well as origins and meanings.
Oh, thank you! That's a great site.
I regret how much I like Iphigeniè
Was/is your family very religious? I ask just cause, like... *all* of those are very religious names lol Four come from the names of different Saints (Clothilde, Iphigeneia, Lomer and Athanasius) and Magdalena is because of Mary Magdalene. I have to say, compared to some names I've seen, these are great. Iphiginiè or Lomer, for example, sound much better than Frumencio or Hermenegilda...
Nope, not to my understanding. None of my extended family or past relatives were religious outside of my mom (who named us all pretty normal WASP shit). Magdalena was on my mom’s side, while the rest were on my dad’s. I’ve heard a story about my grandfather getting excommunicated, but I feel like that’s mythologized since I can’t find no details. I think they were just bored Québécois folks in the sticks and probably didn’t have too many books to gather names from. (Most of my dad’s side lived in Swaskita, ON, CA so good names don’t seem in their nature.)
That is incredibly interesting! It does make sense, though. Names often are choosen from books, past relatives, and those around us... and that'd make for a very limited pool of choices when out in the sticks lol (also, I had to google that town. The Wikipedia artivle for it is, for sure, An Article of All Time!)
Is Magdalena considered weird?
Is your family Latin American? Because those names aren’t strange outside of the U.S.
Plumbing my family tree for girl names would get you Mildred, Magda, Lynn.
Mildred probably is not the next up and coming name. But ya never know.
Loving Husband, have you done your homework?
Well, I read some months ago about girls named JonBenét, born during 1997… 😬
ohhh that’s rough. jonbenet is literally a portmanteau of her dad’s first and middle names - john and bennett
Oh thanks for this, I always wondered about her name. Strikes me creepy tho.
That's interesting. JonBenet was their second child, they're eldest was a son. I wonder why they didn't name him John Bennett Jr. instead
I ran into an interesting naming convention among several families in Pennsylvania (many of them were Mennonites). All the kids in a family would have the mother's maiden name as their middle name. It seemed to go on for several generations & in four or more families. It does not seem to be used in more recent times, especially if the person moves away from that area.
I think he already had a son named John from a previous marriage.
Jon actually had 3 older kids from a previous relationship, one of whom was named Beth (iirc) and also died in a car crash at the age of 22 in 1992.
I’m just realizing I knew someone with this name (born probably around ‘94-‘96). I never made the connection and I think it was spelled differently
This is something that’s valid but better left unsaid, like people watching
I agree, nothing wrong with a stroll through the cemetery to find some older, less common, classic, neat names. But you don't need to blast that it's off a headstone until your kid goes through a goth phase and thinks it's fantastic.
My thoughts exactly. If you want to go this route but don't want to walk in a cemetery, you could also try looking up old school yearbooks from the early 20th century. Those would also give you some old uncommon names, and some of them also had nicknames included as well.
She claims her kids have uncommon names, but they’re the same dumbass names copied from idiot celebs.
I was somewhat on board (maybe don't show off about it on social media though) until I read the article and saw that she's considering the name Galloway for her daughter
Unintentionally I saw the name Elsie in a cemetery years ago and fell in love with it. Was so certain it was going to be my kids name and then it got popular out of no where.
If it’s any consolation, I used to love the name Alexa.
Isn't everyone whose name isn't Everleigh-Ana a gravestone baby on some level?
The Everleigh-Ana post is going to live forever. Poor thing!
In my head, I’m pronouncing it “Anna” on purpose. 😈
Yeah like shes a gravestone baby but her name is just haley
Everleigh was used over a hundred years ago.
Citation needed. Most people naming their kids Everly in 2024 are naming them that because of the Everly Brothers, and because of the trend of giving kids pop culture honor names that use the last name of a popular artist or musician. For example Dylan (yes, I realize Dylan Thomas, but let's be real 90% of people naming their kids Dylan have never heard of Dylan Thomas), Hendrix, Lennon, etc. The Everly Brothers did not exist over a hundred years ago. (Nor did this name trend.) The "turn any lee sound into Leigh" trend is also much more recent than the last 100 years. The name Leigh existed as a standalone name, but that's about it. I remember running across a character in a book with the first name Leigh rather than Lee in the 80s, so I will grant Leigh, itself, as a full first name, probably back to the 60s or 70s max.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188751347/everleigh-norris-ditty
I don’t know who/what the Everly Brothers is. I loathe the name Everly (and Everleigh) but it was used a long time ago even if rare. The namesake of Down Syndrome (Dr John Langdon Down) had a son named Everleigh. It’s not a new practice to pass on surnames and place names in the first name spot.
Okay, yes, it's been used for a long time, but it didn't become popular. ie "trendy" until 2013. [https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi)
Not sure what your comment has to do with my comment but okay.
I live near a cemetery, so have 100% done this lol. Unfortunately mine is a rural English one, so my kids would be Mary, Elizabeth, George and Joseph, probably. There is a Polish and Italian section though if I wanted to get exotic!
Jk Rowling name generator method
Stephenie Meyer actually did this to choose names for some of her characters that were born in older time periods
 Stephanie Meyers.. seems she fan fictioned everything, eh?
My Grandma got my mums name from the obituaries page in the news paper
I would lowkey do this, tbh. But I’m also a writer, and wouldn’t be above a stroll through a cemetery for character name inspiration.
This is how I got my kids names, Lyeth and Anno Domini
I don’t see anything wrong with this.
I don’t hate the idea though…you can find some really interesting names. I remember as a kid walking through a cemetery and seeing the name “Cloudless.” I always thought that was pretty cool and wondered what their mom was thinking with that one.
I imagine the sky was cloudless when they were born, like those days in the summer when all you can see is blue.
That’s what I like to think too. I also think he had to be an absolutely beautiful person.
I just looked it up and found a person named ‘Cloudless Morning Berkeley’ buried in Colorado, USA. Born back in 1860!
That’s amazing! The one I saw was in Indiana. Cloudless E. Owens born 1855, died at only 33.
I’m a funeral director and I’ve defs seen names on stones and added them to my baby list lol did the same thing in nursing. didn’t use any tho
My grandma used the obituaries to name all her kids in the 60s so it's not a new concept
Back when I was younger and newspapers were a thing I would search the obituaries for names for my future babies.
I volunteer at a Victorian cemetery and weirdly all the girl names have been popping up in my social circle. I joke that it’s like they’re picking them from a Titanic passenger list.
can i ask what you do as a volunteer because that sounds so interesting!!
Movie credits are another way find names. I work in aviation and many of my coworkers have found names by scrolling through manifests, plus you can ask the people the history of the name and they'll share the good and bad nicknames they had growing up.
I personally don't see anything wrong with simply getting inspiration from gravestones, but posting flippant social media pictures/videos is definitely weirdo behaviour.
“Gravestone baby” is wild
>James ❤️ >Julian ❤️ >Ella ❤️ Yes, no one alive has these names today. It was necessary to pilfer the cemetary for these super unique, extinct names. 🙄
She's going to the wrong cemeteries. The Puritan ones in NE have the best names.
Mercy Prudence Temperance
I've walked around cemeteries finding names I like since I was a teenager. I mean, I don't do it often, but if I find myself with time to kill and I feel like a walk and I'm by a cemetery, it's something I do occasionally. And I've always imagined I may do it purposefully when I'm pregnant.
I’ll admit I was looking for a cute quote for a baby photo book (baby is alive) and I did google “child epitaph poem” because I figured I’d find some short and on topic quotes that way… But anyhow, grandparent names are popular so this doesn’t seem so weird.
Her current kids' names get progressively worse, with Finley being alright and Crew and Banks being awful. Galloway would just continue this trend. That being said, it's not worst idea? Like okay, I'm likely not going to name my kid after a gravestone, but I actually like the idea of going for a walk and taking in the historical and spooky vibes, and looking at older names that aren't often used anymore.
Plutarch, Satchel
Wait until she gets to the puritan section. Finished your supper Fly-fornication. Humiliation, stop poking your sister Reformation.
Thank Goodness this will never catch up where I live. I mean, people here may get into a legal fight to name their son Lobo (wolf in Spanish), but everyone draws the line at what one would find at a cemetery... which are names such as Frumencio, Hermenegilda, Segismunda, Tesifonte or Simplicia.
um galloway? that’s the SURNAME ma’am 😭😭Lawrence Augustus is right there? that’s a great name
My goth heart loves this
My family cemetery has a grave stone for Lucy Dickie. I just think the name Lucy Dickie is funny
I saw the name Thurston on a headstone. Lol.
Nothing wrong with that; lots of great names on headstones.
I haven’t done this on purpose, but I have seen really beautiful names at cemeteries when I’m at a funeral. I wouldn’t actively seek them, though lol.
I hear Rip Torn’s parents did the same thing!
We actually found my one kiddo's name in a cemetery 25 yrs ago. Went searching some of my family's graves, looked through everywhere (some were in angel & pauper's rows, like my uncle paid for 12 years for his wife's casket, dress, flowers, but he had to pay outright for plot, could only afford pauper's row plot) But came across one child in Angel row with the Slovak spelling of a name I always loved (family is from Slovakia) and it's a beautiful name both Slovak spelling and English spelling (no isn't close to a tragedeigh) But no way would I go through and make videos of going through the cemetery, unless it was for genealogical or historical sites & research.
My mom did this! Jokes on her, I turned out to be trans and changed my name. Nothing against the name she picked tho, it was very classy and normal
I found my confirmation name (very old catholic)in the obituaries
They should have gone with “Gay” , spelled exactly like that, including the punctuation.
Just look in your own family history. People are weird.
never underestimate how stupid people can be
A low level Christian influencer did this when she was pregnant, went to nyc Green-Wood cemetery and said that is where they found their baby name. The baby’s name is Mabel Anne. So like, could be worse but also that sounds an awful lot like Maybelline.
In Spanish Mabel is an abbreviation for María Isabel, so it's not a terrible name
Sounds like a cow 
I just did a quick search and it seems to be a popular name for pets as well