Message: "Re: 'Cruel and unusual'"

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Re: 'Cruel and unusual'

by erb816

6/27/2017, 7:05 AM

Egbert, with a possible nickname Egg, I would consider cruel because... well, Egg. But Ethelred, while odd, isn't "cruel." Real people go by Ethel.

Names I would consider "cruel" today:

Gay / Gaye / Gaylord
Dick / Dickie
Lagina (rotate that L 45 degrees...)
Guido (outside of Italy)
Jerk (outside of Sweden - though it might not even work there anymore)
Titty
Ulick
Beulah
Anemone
Fester
Puck
Happy (as a legal name)
Shaniqua (racists ruined this one)
Agape (in an Anglophone country)
Alease
Columbine (in the U.S. post-1999)
Pastor
Alexus / Lexus (some car names work... but not this one)
Blossom / Flower
Nest
Delight
Ebenezer (Scrooge)
Sherlock (Holmes)
Polycarp
Richmal

A side note: I actually really do like the name Yorick, but I'm afraid that it could potentially fall into this category. Would "Hamlet" jokes follow a Yorick wherever he went?

Please rate my personal name lists:

www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/109399
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/91835
http://greens-end.myminicity.com

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- Bex

6/27/2017, 5:27 PM

Egbert

I actually think the kids at school would love a kid named Egbert. I think the nickname Egg would go down really well. Lol.

I remember my brother and cousin loving the names Egbert and Humphrey in primary school. Every time we played lego they would use those names.

- CN

6/27/2017, 10:19 AM

Jerk and Jerker still work in Sweden but I don't think anyone actually use it for their sons anymore.
Jerk and Jerker are pronounced something like yairk and yairk-ehr but since most non-Scandinavians don't know that it's internationally a pretty bad name.

I had a teacher named Jerker when I was in high school. One of the best teachers I've ever had. Makes me think Jerker isn't that bad.

I also had a teacher named Tutti (here it's like the English Titti). It was her full name. I remember we thought it was a weird and funny name and poor Tutti, it was not easy being named Tutti and teaching eleven-year-olds.

- Ninor (Frozten)

6/27/2017, 10:01 AM

You know what's worse than Jerk? Jerker !

I'm Swedish and one of my previous co-workers were named this. Nobody seemed to care, but I always thought it was horrid...
One of my current co-workers have a wife who go by Titty, that's not her given name though (it's a complicated African one)

- queenv +1

6/27/2017, 7:28 AM

Oh man Shaniqua. I just used it as an example of an African-American name in the Writing Room. I honestly did not know that it was considered that stereotypical and had so much negative connotation attached to it. I was just trying to think of an African-American name that most people would be familiar with. So many of them are unique or very unusual, but I thought it would defeat my purpose to cite one that wasn't familiar to most people.

- Fiammetta (lady murasaki)

6/28/2017, 2:45 AM

It's interesting about Shaniqua, to me Lakisha sounds much more obviously stereotypical. I had a Chinese student pick it as her English name, and if she had been planning to study abroad she would have fallen into the "I advise you to pick a different name" category.

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