Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Names Names Names

It's not the coughin that carries you off in,
it's the coffin they carry you off in.

I wonder what would have happened if my grandmother (Taffy Nana) had followed through with her threat to call my mum Lydia. She was happily named Marilyn, most likely after Marilyn Munroe.

Sure the name Lydia is an old name and you don't hear it much these days, but the joke was in her surname, you see my mum was born a Coffin...Yes her family name was Coffin.

Put it together and you get Lydia Coffin..HA HA

We even had relatives who hyphonated their other surname Pyne, Yes the Pyne-Cofffins.

Whenever you got a shocked answer, "what did you say" , you would reply "Yes as in pine box"

I'm sure there are a lot out there with curious and strange names, some due to parents not really thinking through the names given to their children, I remember agonising over names, hoping that your children won't get too much flack.
I worked with a Richard Hunt, my wife went to school with a Teresa Green and a Teresa Hill. A workmate told me he went to a church where the Bishop who became a Cardinal, problem was his surname was Sin.
As for Mapstone, well it looks like an easy name to spell, but then again i've had every possible misspelling under the sun like
  • Marstone
  • Manstone (hmm interesting)
  • Madstone (love that one)
  • Maplestone (very sweet)
  • Kapstone (no idea how)
  • Napstone (zzzzzzzzzz)
  • Matstone

So I wonder if you have an interesting names story to tell, do tell.

3 comments:

  1. I won't reveal my real surname here, but it's unusual and I get variations such as Townsend, Townson, Tonson etc. It's annoying sometimes because when I spell it out, some people actually say, "Oh, there's no N in the middle?" or "There's no D on the end?"

    You'd think I'd know how to spell my own surname!

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  2. I've got a 5 letter surname - and even when I spell it they get it wrong. My maiden name had 9 letters and people got that wrong too!

    People just don't listen sometimes :(

    there are some interesting 'modern' names out there and I pity poor little Stefanie or Stephany, or Jaiden, and Jaydyn. How are we meant to know how to spell the first name - let alone the surname of of greek origin with every letter in the alphabet contained within?

    Help us please

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  3. Ahhhh, my surname is Smith! lol

    But I love the whole name thing. And it certainly is amusing what some people name their kids. I went to school with a Paul Paulson...how original!

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