The Beat Goes On (2024 update)

It has been nearly 30 years since we began the Utah Baby Namer. In the past three
decades, we have run across quite a few strange names, and stranger spellings for
somewhat normal names. And just when we think we’ve heard them all, we run across
a new one.

On a recent trip to Utah we were waited on by a young woman with the name Khlcee on
her name tag. Yes, that’s how it was spelled.

“Kelsey?” I queried.

“Yes,” she answered. I gathered that I was one of the few who had pronounced it
correctly.

I told her about this website, and she nodded her head. “I did a presentation (on having
a weirdly spelled name) once,” she said. I went on to tell her about being interviewed on
KUER, and a woman named Cliphane (Cliff’-a-nee) called in.

We commiserated a bit about how annoying it is to be saddled with spelling,
pronouncing, and explaining your given name, ad nauseam, during your entire life. She
obviously resented the twisted logic that went into her own dumb spelling.

“Why not just change it?” might be the logical response to this problem. And I have
considered it. I have chosen not to because I loved my mom and honor her memory,
and it was her idea. Plus, I have a really good friend with the same spelling and having
our names in common is a fun bond.

Even thirty years on, with this site being one of the oldest on the Internet, the parade of
weird spellings and nut job names goes on. Girls are still more often saddled with
strange names than boys, and although antique monikers such as Hazel, Ella, Emma,
Ruby, and Mabel are more popular now than when we began, there are still people bent
on bestowing their kids with names such as Braxton, Brinlee, Charlestyne, and any one
of the dozen spellings of Caitlin out there.

So we reiterate—think about what it means to be burdened with an unusual name.
Yeah, you want your kid to be unique, but do you really want your kindergartener to
have to learn to spell Khlcee when Kelsey would have done just fine?

Cari Bilyeu Clark
August, 2024