From dated pop culture references to painful misspellings, we count 25 of the dumbest names
parents have given their children!
Is your name on here?
25 ESPN.
In 2007, television sports super fans David and Karen Hartle voluntarily named their son
‘ESPN’ after being inspired by others who had done the same.
They originally planned to name him ‘Reed ESPN’, but when he was born he looked more
like an ESPN – whatever the hell that means.
God help the kid if he sucks at sport…
24 Alucard.
Like an a la carte breakfast, but it’s actually ‘Dracula’ backwards.
Sorry, parents, but vampires are so 2009.
It’s werewolf mutant sheepdogs now.
23 Billion.
What does it say about our priorities that we’re naming our children Cash, Rich – not
short for Richard – and Dollar?
Well, as of 2014, we’re now taking the money references to the extreme and calling kids
Billion, Million and Amillion.
I guess at least Billion can be nicknamed Bill or Billy.
Obviously Billion is going to win in a schoolyard fight against Million, but it’s anyone’s
fight when that tough new kid Trillion moves in from out of the town.
22 Hashtag.
Isn’t this tweet…
In 2012 – a year that saw the birth of children named after Kindles, Gangnam Style and Steve
Jobs – this mother lowered the bar for all of society by naming her baby ‘Hashtag’,
implying she spent the length of her pregnancy staring at her iPhone.
Funnily enough, she posted Hashtag’s birth announcement on Facebook, which, at the time,
didn’t even support hashtags.
#FAIL!
21 Pawk.
This name sounds like a pinball machine sound effect, or someone from Brooklyn trying to
say ‘pork’.
Needless to say, I balk at it!
I’m sure the schoolyard bullies will too.
20 Hellzel.
Apparently this name is a compromise between two new parents.
The mother really wanted the nice wholesome ‘Hazel’ and the father wanted something
that would honour his love of the Hell’s Angels biker club.
They settled on ‘Hellzel’, so now no one wins.
19 Eighmey.
You know how there are classic names, like Amy, that sound refined and elegant?
Well, this generation of parents think shitting on tradition is two-thumbs-up cool.
They want something classy, but also have this compulsion to spray their stench of individuality
all over it, which is how you end up with stupid bastardisations of perfectly decent
names.
I’m talking about using ‘Z’s instead of ‘S’s and throwing redundant ‘Y’s
everywhere.
‘Eighmey’ takes this trend to the extreme with ugly phonetic spelling.
It’s like the number ‘Eight’ had a demented lovechild with the word ‘Chimney’.
Burn it with fire!
18 I’munique.
A bank teller stumbled across this strange-sounding name on a client sheet.
It sounds interesting and exotic – European by way of high fantasy – but is actually
just the words ‘I’m’ and ‘Unique’ jammed together.
I guess it does what it says on the box …
17 Chairish.
This name clearly came about when a nurse barged into the room and said, ‘We’ve
waited long enough.
You have to name your child now!’
And the mother looked around in a panic, saw an empty hospital chair and said ‘Err … Chair
… ish!’
16 Tulala Does The Hula From Hawaii
Two zany New Zealanders called their daughter Tulala Does The Hula From Hawaii, and she
grew up too embarrassed to tell anyone.
In 2008, the parents formally split up and ended up in court battling for custody.
It was there the horrified judge noticed the daughter’s name and ordered they change
it to save her the embarrassment.
The judge argued that the parents showed very poor judgement and that they’d essentially
handicapped their daughter with a social disability.
No arguments here.
15 Phelony.
Melanie’s a pretty name, so I bet these parents were trying for something equally
sweet when they riffed on it with ‘Phelony’.
Either that or they conceived her in the slammer during a conjugal visit.
Either way, saddling your kids with horrible names should be a felony.
14 K-VIII-lyn (pronounced ‘Katelyn’)
Look, I’ve already had my rant about bastardised spellings and there isn’t enough blood-thinning
medication in the world to help me with this one, so I’ll simply say that spelling Caitlyn
‘K, eight in roman numerals, lyn’ is wrong.
13 Rage.
A poster on Reddit ran into her ex-boyfriend at a gas station and discovered he had become
a father figure to his new girlfriend’s son.
The little boy’s name was Rage.
That’s just what you want when run into an ex: that commitment-phobic ex has moved
on with an absolute crazy person.
Makes you feel like you’ve dodged a bullet.
It’d be funny if Rage was a shy little pacifist.
12 Placenta.
First of all: ew.
And secondly: ewww!
11 Yr’Hyness.
I guess with names like Kingston and Queenie in existence, it wasn’t long before some
idiot called their child Yr’Hyness.
Still, I don’t like it.
Makes a mockery of the morally upstanding royal family…
10 Punched.
Hopefully these parents received a few of their child’s namesake for thinking up this
stupid name.
9 Khaleesi.
Yes, Emilia Clarke’s a babe and, sure, most of us can’t wait for Daenerys Targaryen
to grace our screens again, but does that really justify naming your child after a freaking
Game of Thrones character?
Lord of the Rings was a similarly massive cultural phenomenon, but far as I know we
don’t have kids in our society named Frodo, Bilbo or Gandalf.
On the other hand, it would’ve been cool if one of them had grown up to run the country…
‘President Gandalf’ sure has a nice ring to it.
Such a missed opportunity.
8 Ninja Qwest.
Nerds can be crazy enthusiastic about pop culture, so when two nerds get together and
procreate chances are they may be tempted to put a name like ‘Ninja Qwest’ – that’s
with a ‘W’, by the way!
– onto the table.
But show a little foresight, parents!
You might think the name ‘Ninja Qwest’ is hilarious, but that child is never going
to get laid, or make any friends, or want to go outside … probably ever.
It’s a sure-fire way to make them resent you, and the last thing you want is a pissed
off Ninja Qwest.
Seriously, you’ll end up with a dai katana to the throat as you sleep.
7 Derfla.
This derpy name is Alfred inverted.
Apparently, Derfla’s parents thought she was going to be a boy so planned to name him
after drunk old Uncle Alfred.
When she came out with girl parts, the parents had to improvise: thus Derfla.
6 Budz Kronik.
Two potheads called their child ‘Budz Kronik’.
A future congressman he won’t be.
5 Winner and Loser.
New York brothers Winner and Loser obviously received the wrong names.
Burdened by pressure to excel, Winner fell into a life of petty crime, while his brother,
Loser, battled inherited adversity to graduate college and become a police sergeant.
Actually, their life story would make a pretty cool movie…
To make matters worse, their last name was Lane, so Loser would’ve gotten called Lois
Lane.
Actually that’s still better than ‘Loser’.
4 Sssst.
Oh, look, another sound effect.
‘Sssst’ is what happens when snake-lovers have children.
What I want to know is how you’re supposed to discipline a child when their name sounds
like a whisper.
‘ALRIGHT, Sssst…, GET IN THERE AND TIDY YOUR ROOM!
ARE YOU LISTENING, Sssst…
? Needless to say, this child would definitely
get put in Slytherin.
3 Rich Will Wanket.
Poor Rich Will Wanket.
His name sounds like a Craigslist ad: Rich, Will Wank it.
I hear when he went to a fortune teller, they prophesised he’d be a famous gay porn star.
I mean, with that name, what else could he do?
2 Burger.
Last year five in every one million American babies was named Burger.
I wonder if anyone in the delivery room asked if the mother wanted fries with that.
1 Rusty Kuntz.
This had to be number one.
Imagine calling your child what is probably the most offensive insult anyone could come
up with.
Although he defied the odds by becoming a pro baseballer, most kids named Rusty Kuntz
would grow up to be one of two things: a serial killer or a Mexican wrestler.