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

[x-lostinyou.livejournal.com]

Personally (my name being stephanie), I cannot STAND when people mess with the spelling of my name. It's either Stephanie or Stefanie. That's the way everyone will spell it, and I'd hate to be one of those kids always correcting people. It's bad enough having those two for me now- even my own step-family still spells it 'stefanie' for me a lot of the time. =/ I think a bit of creative license can be taken for less common names, but names like that with highly established spellings should just be left alone. Only my humble opinion though. =)