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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I'm moderate on this topic. On one hand, people can be too judgy about names they consider bizarre. On the other hand, a few parents seem to go out of their way to dole out names that'll be a headache for their kids, their kids' future teachers, etc.
reddit has r/tragedeigh: "Tragedeigh = a given name that has been deliberately misspelled or completely made up to appear more unique than it actually is."
The ending "...than it actually is" isn't the clearest, IMO, but I guess they mean that the overall concept of changing certain letters so that a name stands out isn't unique. Or that trying to come up with a unique name is a shallow way of expressing uniqueness.
But the changing-letter thing doesn't have to be unreasonable. My piano teacher had a daughter she named "Sydney." It makes sense, since "Sidney" is usually a masculine name, while city names tend to look more feminine or gender-neutral. And what's wrong with a Y instead of an I once in a while? My 60-something colleague on the artisans committee is a Francyne, not a Francine, and the world hasn't ended.
The counterpoint would be a girl who signed up for a craft activity back when I was doing day camp stuff. Her first name was "Oceann." Now, it wasn't pronounced oshi-ann. It was pronounced the same as "ocean." I remember thinking it was a pretty name...but why add the extra "n"? It's confusing.
I wouldn't mind being named Ocean. But Oceann? No.
But now that I write it out, I realize it's still somewhat arbitrary and subjective what a "reasonable" name is.
I mean, some people might think my mother weird for giving me a Danish/Norwegian name when
1) we do not live in a Scandinavian country
2) we have no Scandinavian ancestry unless you go way, way back (Aunt Sarah did one of those DNA tests and discovered her maternal DNA came from the Norway region - but this is like centuries ago)
3) and it means Christian while I'm more agnostic (it's okay, God made me that way)
But I kind of like "Kirsten" - I'm used to it, plus I appreciate that it's an existing name but not super common. Or in other words, that it's just a little bit weird. Then again, so is my last name, and I didn't used to like it - just because it sounds a bit goofy*. "Kirsten" sounds slightly foreign, here in Canaduckia, but it doesn't sound inherently goofy.
And it was more a headache for my mom than me: she'd always correct people who pronounced my name as "Kristen" or "Kerstin," while sometimes I wouldn't even notice.
*I mean, "de l'Incomprehensibilité" is a bit odd, don't you think? (okay, okay, that's not my real surname, though the real one is also probably French)
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