Making it up

[lostrocket.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how people feel about tailored and made-up names. I know there is a lot of dislike for "kreatyv" spellings, and at least a moderate amount of disdain for apparently made-up names.

I mostly agree with this, but I've started feeling kind of bad because a lot of names that are now perceived as traditional began as made-up (well, I suppose all names were made-up once upon a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but most names currently in circulation have a long linguistic history).

I don't mind creative names and spellings on principle. My issue is when people bastardize language in order to differentiate a name. Language has rules and systems, and if you want to come up with something new I think you should operate within those constraints. Language also has history, and it would also be nice to think about the etymology of your creation (but I would definitely settle just for people realizing that you can't swap/add/subtract/rearrange letters indiscriminately).

For people who dislike "kreatyv" and made-up names, is it an across-the-board feeling? Are there ways to categorize how you feel about different tailorings?

I also sometimes have issues with names that have been borrowed from other languages, and kind of jury-rigged to fit with English, but I can't even go into that without this trailing on forever.

Comments

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

The different spellings don't bother me much unless they're so misspelled you can't figure out what the name is supposed to be - I wouldn't use them, but I can get through them without too much teeth-grinding. The thing that really annoys me is when people spell something one way, but insist that you pronounce it a way that doesn't fit the spelling.

As far as the jerry-rigging names to work in English - kind of torn. I've studied Russian and have Czech/Polish background, so we'd kind of like to have a Slavic name for the middle name - because to spell most of them correctly, we'd be condemning the child (and us) to spelling out the name everytime.

DV

[lostrocket.livejournal.com]

"The thing that really annoys me is when people spell something one way, but insist that you pronounce it a way that doesn't fit the spelling."

I feel like a lot of tailored names have fallen into this category, because they tried to get way too creative with the spelling. Or, they just don't understand the way language works.

And re: the Slavic name for you, is a difficult thing. I love a lot of French names, but language rules are different between French and English: spelling and pronounciation would always be a problem. *deletes tangent about imports and pronounciation...I know how to stop talking, really*

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Which is why we're thinking middle name for it - so the explanations stay to a minimum.

DV