Need Character Name Inspiration? Don't Look Here!

Wow! I could’ve had a V8!

Literally.

I could’ve given birth to a baby, (human—not vegetable) and named the child “V8”. But not if I lived in Sonora, Mexico. I also could not have named my bouncing baby boy Robocop, Spinach, or Twitter (maybe that last one would be better suited for a girl, anyway).

Fantasy and Sci-Fi writers, more than any other genre, rely on creative sounding names for their worlds and their characters. Sometimes we use common names, but often what suits our far-flung places is something out of the ordinary. Personally, I have a running list of unusual monikers that I keep in the notes app on my phone. They may come from twisting around a normal name (Revonika from Veronica, for example) or they may be a cool word I stumbled on or thought up (such as Thiago). I like having a lengthy list available for my choosing.

After hearing about a banned name-list on the radio, recently, I thought it would be fun to check it out and share the results. The sad thing to consider is that this was a necessary step to be made at all, let alone officially in a court of law! What’s wrong with our gene-pool, what foul free-radical has affected our thinking, to come to the place of naming our children after social media sites?

Though I sympathize with the poor child who blazed the trail to the black-list, I still find it entertaining (and rather bewildering) to see “what’s trending” around the world. Let’s take a peek, shall we?

Here’s a partial list of what you cannot name your child in Sonora, Mexico:

Burger King, Rambo, Facebook, Harry Potter, Christmas Day, Rolling Stone, Cesarean, Circumcision, Yahoo, Pocahontas, Spinach, Rocky, Mistress, US Navy, Terminator, Hitler
Lady Di, Email, Batman, Sponsorship, Traffic, Martian, Rolling Stone, and Illuminated.

What? I can’t name my kid Email Burger King if I live in Mexico? Well, maybe I’ll try New Zealand then. Oh wait, they have a list as well? 

Yep. Here’s a sampling of their banned names (I think they have a creative edge over Mexico):

Mafia No Fear (yes, that’s all one, banned name), Lucifer, V8, and 4real. In fact, there’s a ban on symbols being used as part of, or in place of a name, such as: * (yes, that’s an asterisk. Probably the love-child of “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”). Furthermore, you can forget [brackets], slash/marks, or #hashtags (sorry Fallon).

But a few lucky New Zealand parents have had their quirky names approved. Who could forget going to school with Midnight Chardonnay (she is sure to get a reputation!), Violence (have you taken your meds today?), or Number 16 Bus Shelter (voted most likely to be homeless)? Yet those three can’t quite touch the finesse of this little dandy: Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. That unfortunate young lady became a ward of the court at age 9 so they could change her name.

The piece-de-resistance comes to us from the land of IKEA and gummy-fish. Sweden had a couple that wanted to name their child”Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116″ (pronounced “Albin,” of course). That poor child would probably request to become a ward of the court to get rid of that burden! Thankfully, the courts dashed those parents’ hopes and dreams for their child.

Yes, these names are so far out there, they’re off the grid and off their rocker. For a full list from Mexico and Sweden, click on the highlighted country. No writerly inspiration to be had among these doozies!

Along the way I’ve heard of a few names that I’ve laughed at or heard in disbelief. Susie Capusie is one I’ve never forgotten (a friend of a friend). My maiden name is Love, and I have a relative with the (intentional) name of Chase Moore Love. And I always have to grimace at the blasé imagination of parents that would name their son David McDavid, even though he is a wealthy businessman that owns a host of car lots here in DFW. Still, none of those can touch the creative-lunacy behind the names on these lists.

What’s the craziest real name you’ve ever come across? Leave it in the comments!