Once upon a time, Hestrie Cloete inspired me to write a piece for the Sunday Times Lifestyle supplement. She and her husband, Jurie Els, had invited Huisgenoot into their home to view their new progeny, a little girl. They had bestowed on the poor child the ghastly moniker of Chrizette. She would have to go through life sounding like a brand of paper serviette.
(Huisgenoot offers a rich vein to mine for those who, like me, seek the rare and transcendent joy of happening upon a truly appalling name.)
Hestrie and Jurie are not alone. It has not escaped my notice that for some reason, Afrikaans speakers tend to have a weakness for names of no formal provenance or meaning; this practice seems to be associated more with girls than boys. Also, they are fond of combination names that reflect those of both parents. The French accent aigu is horribly abused, and stuck almost everywhere (as it happens, my laptop can’t insert accents so you’ll just have to imagine them plonked willy-nilly over every innocent passing e).
Thus, in a recent issue of Huisgenoot, it was reported that a couple were in a legal battle with the surrogate mother of a child they proposed to name Leoret, a combination of Leon and Doret. (The surrogate mother wanted to name the infant Dene-with-an-accent-on-the-e, so the child is truly between a rock and a hard place.)
A few of my more recent finds include:
Elizna
Hermienka and
Sonnika
Old favourites include such gems as:
Li-Anri
Elzette
Hanri
Anriette
Elzaan
Riette
Diorette
Liorette
Alzette
Danne and
Chanelize
And also:
Creshenda
Chrisinda
Chare-ne
Charne
Dije and
Biejanka
The endless fecundity of the awful made-up name meme is the fact that it is so simple: all you need to do is combine one of a few basic prefixes — Al, An, Liz, Dor, El, Ri, Han and Chan or Dan being common — with a few basic suffixes, usually -ize, -aan, -ette or the ubiquitous e-with-the-accent-on-it. And, voila, you have your formula.
The authors of Freakonomics delved into this subject in their chapter linking preferred names to social class. In the US, names can be strong markers of race, too. There, men called Andre, Bernard or Tyrone are almost always African-American; invented names such as LaTonya or Roshanda are, as the Freakonomics article describes them, “super black”.
The point made in Freakonomics is not that a name in itself is predictive of success in life, but that it is indicative of other factors that influence outcomes. Thus, names that are strongly black are associated with low socioeconomic status and poor education levels.
I am not aware of any study of class associations with names in South Africa, but it would be interesting to understand the significance of this phenomenon. Does a truly horrendous name preclude its bearer from becoming, say, a professor of mathematics? Does it doom a girl child to a weakness for Neil Diamond covers by Steve Hofmeyr, thatch lapas and paintings of sad clowns?
That’s a fate too horrible to imagine. Somebody should put a stop to the abuse.
@Jeff: Blanket is such a lovely, adorable name for that sweet child! Michael Jackson was very affectionate and his children were obviously a great comfort to him. But I think it was silly to name a child “Prince”. That’s just… I don’t know… unfair to the poor child!
After all is said and done: Chrizette is the tackiest tag you can put on a baby. I think it is mostly working class (or new money) Afrikaaans people who give their children names like that. (Old)Middle-class and educated Afrikaners usually give their children French/German names.
Some English names that African people have are interesting: e-tv news reporter is “Goodenough Mashego”. One of my husband’s clients has a very beautiful African name. The other day my husband saw a copy of his ID and his English name is Nervous. My husband couldn’t help laughing and the guy smiled “nervously” and said he would change it, only that it is very stressful to go to Home Affairs. It’s better to just go through lie making sure that few people know his name.
You think Afrikaners have a monopoly on stupid hyphenated surnames? I knew of one person with a triple-barreled surname. She had a hyphenated surname when she was single, then added a hyphen and her new husbands surname to her double-barreled surname.
Went onto Wikipedia and found this:
A few upper-class families (e.g. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe; Cave-Browne-Cave; Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound; Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby; Vane-Tempest-Stewart) have “triple-barrelled” surnames (sometimes created when one spouse has a double-barrelled name and the other has a single surname). Nowadays, such names are almost always abbreviated in everyday use to a single or double-barrelled version. There are even a few “quadruple-barrelled” surnames (e.g. Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray; Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) and the surname of the extinct family of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos was the quintuple-barrelled Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville. Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache is sometimes quoted as the man with the most ever “barrels” in his surname (six), but in fact all but the last two of these (Tollemache-Tollemache) were forenames.
Eat your heart out Henri!
@Phillipa,
Blanket may possibly be an OK name for a kid. I have my doubts. This poor child has to grow up and deal with other kids, who can be pretty nasty to eacn other over such things as a silly name. God help the poor creature when the child gets to adulthood with a name like Blanket. Wet-Blanket, dog-Blanket, horse-Blanket. Should have named the child Phillip, or Phillipa, much safer.
Incidentally, Goethe’s mother phoned me, Mozart’s mom had SMS’d her to tell her of your criticism of the name Wolfgang. She wants to know what is wrong with the name Wolfgang? She said rather Wolfgang von Goethe than Blanket von Goethe.
@Henri,
The article wasn’t meant to be hilarious. It was a tongue-in-cheek comment about Afrikans names to stir up some response. She succeeded.
Taking a bit of a dig at a name in another culture in order to stir up a response is hardly being narrow-minded.
There is no need to be so defensive of your Afrikans culture. Ride with the punches, go with the flow, it will show a sign of cultural maturity. You will show that your culture is strong enough to withstand the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, to quote that man again.
To be so defensive shows a lack of self-esteem and a lack of a sense of humour.
Maybe English humour is too subtle for you?
There’s no need to be defensive. All cultures have their good and bad points, including English culture. Whatever that is.
Being Afrikaans myself, I fully agree with Sarah. I don’t see her article as been slanderess towards Afrikaans speaking people. She is merely pointing out the simple mindedness of some Afrikaans folk in combining the parents’ names when choosing a name for their child. I truely hate it, e.g. the name Grezelba. There are enough attractive names to choose from. Yes I agree there are horrific boy/girl names going around these days amongst all nationalities, but she was referring to one specific group. I don’t mind her writing about it, as it’s been annoying me for sometime as well. In general, I think people are bored and trying to be different, in so doing, they’re all just the same, i.e. done in bad taste. Nothing wrong with a neutral name that can be pronounced in all languages, without sounding like you’re from Mars! What’s in a name – everything! Your dignity and whether people will take you serious one day as an adult. My childrens’ names were carefully chosen as not to load them with a heavy burden one day, they have enough challenges in life ahead of them!
Finally some sense from Jeff – Thank you. You have just proven the point I was trying to make. All cultures have “funny” names to other cultures. I tried to make this point when Phillipa butted in, but got a bit worked up and both my posts were deleted.
Sarah and Philipa are carved from the same narrow minded branch and I doubt that they realize that Lipinski and Britten are freakin hilarious surnames from my point of view!!
English humour is about taking the piss with other pepole. Afrikaans humour is about taking the piss with yourself. This is why Nataniel is so popular – and was popular even during the 80s – we didn’t know he’s for real!
@Henri,
Actually I’ve spoken sense all along, it’s just that you never got the message behind my words. Botha got it immediately.
There was a boy in my street back in Wales whose name was Philip Philips. Known to all as Phil-Phil. What were his parents thinking?
Sense of humour can be a funny(Ha Ha, or Uh oh!) thing. One person’s sense of humour can be very offensive to another person at many levels. Try making a joke or cartoon about Mohammed the muslim prophet and see how many laughs, or bombs come your way. As one Iranian cleric put it “There is no fun in Islam” and yet they are a laugh a minute to me with their ridiculous medieval ways.
No you haven’t Jeff, you make up sh!t like “Must say it seems strange that only female spouse takes hyphen” which is an absurd statement with no facts whatsoever!! SO, Jeff and sense, should never be used in the same sentence.
I actually have a great sense of humour and find hordes of afrikaans names funny, as stated, even my name is made up of combining two parents’ names, but to claim it’s only afrikaans people smacks of stupidity. Then people from other cultures, with hilarious names themselves butt in and make afrikaners out to be simple minded beings, meanwhile, their own culture and names are hilarious,
All I am saying is, stop focusing on “them” and pointing and laughing when you are so blinded with your blinkers on, that you don’t even realise your own culture and names are hilarious (and even stupid) to others too!!
Jeff: Phillipa is probably the best name in the world, next to Katia (my three-year-old).
Jeff, on the other hand is not too bad but your parents could have done better. I know someone whose first name was Jeffrey, but he prefered to go by his middle name, George-which is worse, unless you have fantasies of becoming a monarch or, (more realistically) a butler. But, better George than Jeff.
Sure, because Mozart’s name is Wolfgang, that name may be considered to have some, I don’t know, Avant Garde quality but it is just such a terrible name. I know that Zille likes Beethoven (possibly her father liked the musician). Who doesn’t admire Mozart, Beethoven or Stravinsky? That doesn’t mean you should go off and name your child Igor! Really now.
Henri: Why are you so angry. And who said that Afrikaners are “simple-minded” beings? Nobody said that, only that some of them have such tacky, silly, funny and over-the-top names. On the one hand it shows that Afrikaners are very creative but essentially they (especiall working-class Afrikaners) name their children funny! Oh, and some of the music by Afrikaans pop singers really hurts my ears.
See my collection here:
http://vuurklip.net/nuwename.php
Gonville A. ffrench-Beytagh was a white clergyman who featured on the periphery of one of Mandela’s trials in the early 60s.
And yes, it’s “ffrench”. With a small letter in the front.
Something vaguely Hannibal Lecterish about that name. fffava beans and chianti?
My favorite is DeJesus for Portugalese, how about that, or rather the best african names that seem to very popular and accurate includes: Rufus…like in the dog, “hey Rufus, come boy” or Ubu who can ever forget the classic “sit Ubu sit” then of course Election, Justice, Joyous, Freedom, Condom and January February and so on all the calender months, and surely the best that takes the cake is non other than Balkas Seekoei Olifant Koi that translated means Ball Bag Hippopotamus Eliphant and Koi Fish now that is a very accurate description of the african class if ever there was one.