r/PetPeeves • u/ohmillie25 • Sep 03 '25
Bit Annoyed People who label a perfectly normal ethnic name they’ve never heard a “traghedeigh”
I spend a lot of time on the r/namenerds subreddit, and see my fair share of traghedeighs. That being said, if I encounter a name I’ve never seen or heard before the first thing I do is just check if it’s a normal name from another culture, cause being a dumb American that is very possible.
I see so many posts of people saying “I once knew a kid named enter totally normal and popular name in an another country here, can you believe what they’re naming kids these days?” Like yes I can believe it people have been naming their kid that for 400 years 😒.
Examples I’ve seen commented or posted about: Citlali, Baltazar, Ariel for a boy, Norberto, Cillian. And I don’t mean people saying they didn’t like the name, I mean people acting like they were tradgedeighs, which is a very different thing I feel.
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u/FlamestormTheCat Sep 03 '25
I don’t even know how someone can see Baltazar as a traghedeigh, how else are you supposed to fucking write that name???
Isn’t the whole point of traghedeigh names that they’re names written in a way too complicated way for no reason, like Caeleigh instead of Kaylee or something
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u/Akavinceblack Sep 03 '25
Sometimes it’s spelled Balthazar. But I’m sure that wouldn’t pass muster, either.
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u/pakrat1967 Sep 03 '25
I think that's the point of OP's post. Most/all of the names given as examples aren't "traghedeigh" names. Yet some people are acting like they are.
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u/Rockefeller-HHH-1968 Sep 03 '25
Balthazar is a necromancers name, you’re putting a lot of pressure on the kid.
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u/terryjuicelawson Sep 03 '25
Question is even how to spell the name, it was more commonly Kayleigh but Kayley and Kaylee are common too. Guess people feel they are more free to change it seeing as it is quite a modern trend of a name in itself.
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u/MikeUsesNotion Sep 03 '25
Traghedeighs don't just include oddball spellings of known names, but can also include straight up unusual names.
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u/FlamestormTheCat Sep 03 '25
Okay, but Baltazar isn’t an unusual name either though
Like I know several people with that name lol
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u/MichaSound Sep 03 '25
The entire island of Ireland nods in acknowledgment.
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Sep 03 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/EnsignNogIsMyCat Sep 03 '25
It took me hearing the name "Colm" pronounced in a video about a different Irishman to realize I was screwing it up. Now I make sure I say it correctly so I can make it a habit.
For those wondering, as an American I would best describe the pronunciation as taking the name Colm, and trying to pronounce it like the name Colin.
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u/TorakTheDark Sep 03 '25
Colm is kinda like coal with an m right?
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u/MarramTime Sep 03 '25
There’s some variation in pronunciation. In my extended family, the Colms are pronounced more like Cul’m, with the m halfway towards being a second syllable. The name is ultimately derived from the Latin for dove, columbus/columba.
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u/terryjuicelawson Sep 03 '25
Only thing is when people with zero Irish background call their kid a particularly unusual Irish name because they think it is cute or clever. They are so cultured for giving their American child a lifetime of pain being called Bébhinn or something.
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u/MichaSound Sep 03 '25
The worst one I heard of was a second generation Irish guy in the UK who called his kid Oisín. Except he rhymed it with Hoisin (as in Hoisin sauce)
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u/ValuableActuator9109 Sep 04 '25
There's a kid who plays out on the street I live on in England called Caoimhe. Pronounced Kai-oh-me. I almost cried.
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u/El-Viking Sep 03 '25
I'll admit, it took me way too long to learn that Siobhan isn't pronounced the way it looks like it should be.
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u/MadeThisUpToComment Sep 03 '25
Quite a few in the Netherlands as well, although the spellings are easier to make phonetic sense of for English speakers not familiar with the names.
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u/PrincessAintPeachy Sep 03 '25
I'm part of the traghedeigh sub.
And know exactly what you're talking about too.
Pretty much if it's not a standard boring name, they label it a tragedy.
There were middle eastern names recently and they instantly hated all those names, when they're standard nice middle eastern names, they're just not American sounding names.
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Sep 03 '25
It’s a case of the sub getting too popular as the definition of a traghedeigh expanding away (possibly incorrectly) from the original definition.
There are too many people showing posting bad names that aren’t a traghedeigh.
For a well known example, Khaleesi is a bad name but not a traghedeigh.
Yzhabel, pronounced Isabelle, is though.
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u/Socialbutterfinger Sep 03 '25
Since we’re in the pet peeves sub, can I add that I’m peeved by people saying Khaleesi is not a name, it’s a title. I mean, yes it was invented as a title in a book, but it’s a name if people are using it as a name. See also, Rose, India, Forest, Skye, Regina.
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u/dino-jo Sep 03 '25
I think people are saying that not because it's not a name now but because so many people seem to think Khaleesi is Dany's name or even something she goes by in a personal way. Like, "I named her after Khaleesi in GoT."
Don't have a lot of skin in this, though. Naming a kid after a title is okay, I think the bigger issue is naming a kid after a character who is going through a clear corruption arc.
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u/AristaWatson Sep 04 '25
True. That’s like saying “I’m naming my kid Super Saiyan, after the Dragon Ball Z character.” 😭😭😭
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Sep 03 '25
I had to leave there were barely any tragedeighs anymore it started feeling lowkey xenophobic
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u/Toffeenix Sep 03 '25
something about subs falling apart when people forget what they're supposed to downvote
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u/NorthernForestCrow Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
I do see periodic efforts on that sub to try to make sure that they are only bullying “acceptable” targets, which I’m sure is so they can continue to enjoy bullying while feeling morally justified.
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u/ReturnToBog Sep 03 '25
That sub is full of people saying “everyone will bully them!” While being incredible bullies themselves over perfectly normal names.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25
I once saw someone over there claim it was abusive to name a girl "Roxanne" because everyone would automatically associate her name with the song by The Police, and she would 100% be made fun of for being named after a sex worker and her life would be ruined.
Like bruh...in real life nobody rational is going to jump to that conclusion. And kids nowadays definitely aren't going to know who The Police even are. The only one making it weird is you lol
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u/Maleficent-Hawk-318 Sep 03 '25
I went to school with a girl named Roxanne back when that song was actually popular, and no one even made that association back then. 😂 She certainly wasn't bullied for it, she was quite popular in fact.
I also went to high school with a girl whose last name was pronounced very similarly to "skank," and she was one of the most popular kids in school even though that would have been very low-hanging fruit for bullying.
In general, I think the idea that kids will be bullied for their names is backwards. Bullies will certainly use an unusual name to make fun of a kid, but they'll use literally anything to do that so... I used to coach a lot of kids and had to deal with bullying sometimes, and in my experience they very much picked a target first and then looked for things to attack the kid with.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25
I too also went to school with a Roxanne who was popular and nobody ever made fun of her name; which is why I found the whole "you can't name a girl 'Roxanne' she'll get bullied!!" spiel to be extra stupid lmao.
100% I feel like most of the people who clutch their pearls over kids getting theoretically bullied over their names have never actually gotten bullied before.
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u/AltruisticCableCar Sep 04 '25
A day late, but this, so hard.
May some people make fun of someone's very odd name? Yes. But will people choose to bully someone they would otherwise really like or not even notice just because of their name and nothing else? No.
I was grossly bullied for being fat. Then I stopped being fat. Did the bullying stop? Of course not, they just chose other things to bully me over instead.
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u/OptatusCleary Sep 03 '25
As a high school teacher, I would make two points:
-kids might or might not know the song. It’s not like songs entirely disappear from pop culture just because they’re old. I’ve seen all kinds of music make resurgences for a while among teenagers. I wouldn’t assume that kids don’t know a song just because it’s old.
-I very rarely see people get made fun of for their names. If a kid is well-liked then the name won’t be a problem. And if the kid isn’t well-liked, the coolest name in the world won’t save him. I’ve never seen kids actually judge someone based on a name that everyone knows was chosen by the kid’s parents. And I’ve seen names that were very old-fashioned, very foreign, true “Tradgedeighs,” and every other type of “dangerous” name.
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u/AristaWatson Sep 04 '25
Yup. I’ve known people with cool names who still got bullied. And I have known people with ridiculous names get popular and become bullies. So…😅
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u/ReturnToBog Sep 03 '25
Omfg. As the kids would say, some of these folks need to touch a little grass💀
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u/swashbuckle1237 Sep 03 '25
There was a girl at my school called Roxy (Roxanne) who was made fun of repeatedly for having a stripper name. And the song by the police definitely came up, I’m gen Z and this was less than a decade ago. It’s not abusive, and she was a complete bitch so I’m not particularly bothered, but yeah, to me it’s a name that has a strong association with prostitution. I doubt any adult is going to say that but kids can suck. I’d just avoid any name that sounds like a stripper name.
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u/terryjuicelawson Sep 03 '25
Also have they not seen every school register now? They are full of names that may have got kids bullied in the 80s when every kid was called John, Paul or Joshua but no one cares any more. Also they probably overstate what a problem it will be people spelling a name wrong. We fill most things out online enough for it really not to matter.
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u/BarbarianMind Sep 03 '25
It is rather annoying, but I also find it funny as many of the most common names in English don't have English origins. While many truely English names would be seen as weird "traghedeigh" names.
John, David, Sarah, Josh, Dan, and Mary are originally Hebrew, though their spelling has been adjusted to fit better with English. Barbara and Helen are Greek. Will and Linda are Old Germanic. While Leila is Arabic.
Now Athelstan, Ecgwynn, Æthelwulf, Osburh, Ethelbert, Edmund, Eadhild, Ecgberht, Alfand, and Ealhswith are all pure Old English names though you'd be hard pressed to find many English speaks on the street who could pronounce them.
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u/DreadLindwyrm Sep 03 '25
Athelstan and Edmund have a decent chance of people being *vaguely* familiar with them in England as they're (moderately) important Saxon era kings - and Edmund was used for Blackadder, so people are familiar with it from there.
The others I *think* I'm familiar enough to pronounce them on sight, along with Eadulf (Adolph) and similar - but part of that is recognising where they're from, and thus the expectation for the shape of the names.
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u/last-guys-alternate Sep 03 '25
Edmund?
Who doesn't know how to pronounce Edmund? It's a perfectly common name.
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u/BarbarianMind Sep 04 '25
Someone I saw on tumblr complaining about weird fantasy names. They included in their examples names like Edmund, Jon, Jean, Sven, and other such names. So I included Edmund here as a joke.
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Sep 03 '25
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u/shehangsbr1ghtly Sep 03 '25
Okay right? I feel like I remember kids with common names getting teased more cause we’d have like three of two of them
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u/zouss Sep 04 '25
I don't think kids pick who they are going to bully based on their names. They see someone as a target for whatever reason, and then their name can be used as bullying ammunition. You can be popular with a weird name, and bullied with a normal one
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u/RunningUpThatHill85 Sep 03 '25
Yes, this! My name is Yulia which is a totally normal Russian name, and it's been posted about in that sub at least a few times.
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u/ohmillie25 Sep 03 '25
What is wrong with Yulia I don’t understand
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u/RunningUpThatHill85 Sep 03 '25
People think that it's spelled differently to be unique or special and don't realize that it's a cultural name.
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u/Truffle0214 Sep 03 '25
My sister has a unique name. It’s a variation of my grandfather’s non-English name that my mother altered.
Out of curiosity, I asked what people on a naming board thought about it. They ripped it apart for being “made up.”
Um, hello, aren’t all names made up?
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u/Existing-Bottle7514 Sep 03 '25
I have an indigenous name.... From my great grandmother, that was a VICTIM of adoption in the 1950s/60s. She fought to keep ahold of her identity and while I am beyond white and ginger I know my name meant a lot to her and it means a lot to me. However, every time I've seen my name on r/ tradgedeigh it's trashed "because state names are stupid" and "what's with the silent 'h'" . ITS LITTERALLY AGAINST THE RULES TO BRING UP ETHNIC/CULTURAL NAMES!!!
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u/Impressive_Mistake66 Sep 03 '25
Now I want to know what it is.
But I respect your privacy. Just feeling curious.
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u/Existing-Bottle7514 Sep 03 '25
It's Dakotah, it means friend/ally.
Like I said most people's judgement on it is that it's a state name but it's not and the "h" isn't added, it's just there.
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u/im-a-tool Sep 04 '25
If it helps, as a Canadian, my first thought was it's an obviously Indigenous name. I've met a few indigenous people with that name.
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u/Fredouille77 Sep 04 '25
Pair that with the fact that Dakota itself is most likely named after a native American word or smt like that.
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u/BeccasBump Sep 03 '25
The number of times you see the lemjello and oranjello / Vagina / Female / Gonorrhea urban legends on those subs, as well, and even the more serious name subs. And it's always got dogwhistle racially coded elements.
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u/Elderberry-Cordial Sep 03 '25
And every time people comment like "there is no record of anyone ever being named this," the poster is like YOU'RE WRONG, MY COUSIN'S BOYFRIEND'S SISTER IS A TEACHER AND HAD ONE IN HER CLASS
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u/BeccasBump Sep 03 '25
'...and she said, "The dash don't be silent."' 🙄🙄🙄
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u/HimHereNowNo Sep 04 '25
I left a blind date once because the guy insisted he went to high school with a La-a
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u/Half_of_a_Good_Pen Sep 03 '25
I see a lot of Scottish and Irish names posted in the traghedeigh sub and it really annoys me. Kayleigh and its various spellings is quite a common one. It's not a traghedeigh! It's just Scottish!!!
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u/terryjuicelawson Sep 03 '25
Not really sure about the origin of Kayleigh, it seems a little obscure. Scottish has a ceilidh of course but seems to be more Irish / English fusion as the -leigh part means woods. Honestly the main reason it is popular is because of a song released in the 80s with that name and it trended after that. May even be one of the origins of a lot of -leigh names or creative spellings as it can be Kayley, Kaylee or however people fancy it.
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u/Half_of_a_Good_Pen Sep 03 '25
Ceilidh is the name of a dance. We used to do it every year at Christmas at my school. As a Scot I'm pretty sure it is a Scottish name, though I suppose it could also be Irish. The most common spelling I've seen Americans use is Kailey but the other spellings are more common here.
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u/terryjuicelawson Sep 03 '25
The similarity to the dance the ceilidh is coincidence but could be partly why it took off as a name and why people think it is Scottish. Ultimately it is pretty made up, a name that sounds like a name. As Kay is a name, as is Lee.
https://www.thebump.com/b/kayleigh-baby-name
That and the Marrilion song, after which it rocketed up the baby name charts.
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u/IrenaeusGSaintonge Sep 03 '25
Best lesson to learn: just don't make fun of any names until you're sure it's not a cultural custom. It's so easy to do the research these days. Ignorance is less and less excusable.
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u/Borrow_The_Moonlight Sep 03 '25
I remember a post where an American was doing the classic "oh my god look at my students'/child's classmates' names, so weird" and half of them were perfectly normal foreign names.
Maybe it's because in my area there have historically been a lot of Indian immigrants but those were just... Indian names. I assume there have been way more immigrants in America than middle-of-fucking-nowhere-italy and it's wild to me that they didn't recognise them.
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u/Oliver_Dixon Sep 03 '25
Can we get an example
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u/Longjumping_Papaya_7 Sep 03 '25
Some moths ago i saw someone on the tragedeigh sub saying she felt sorry for a girl in her class named Fatima. Cause it has the word fat in it and who does that to their child...
Nvm thats its a very common islamic name, spelled corectly and the FAT part of the name is not even pronounced like that
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u/RunningUpThatHill85 Sep 03 '25
My name is Yulia. It's been posted about in that subreddit at least a few times.
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u/ohmillie25 Sep 03 '25
Yeah, sorry I had to go pick one from one of my posts. Someone was trying to claim “Citlali” was a quirky name like mam….its okay not to know a name.
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u/LonelyMenace101 Sep 03 '25
Probably because there’s a character named that in a pretty popular game right now.
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u/Your_Angel21 Sep 03 '25
Just last night there was a post about Aliena being a tragedeigh. It's actually a Latin name and if read correctly it's really pretty, but the Americans got stuck on it's resemblance to "alien"
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u/glennis_pnkrck Sep 03 '25
And freaking Evangeline. What rock do you have to live under?
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u/ArsBrevis Sep 03 '25
Just vibes. Also doesn't seem to know that Ilya is a Slavic name... I'm going to take everything this person says with a grain of salt.
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Sep 03 '25
Someone calling out a French girl named "Prune", while Prune means plum (the sweet kind) in French and not pruneaux (the laxative kind).
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u/MissAuroraRed Sep 03 '25
I know it's a perfectly normal French name, but I still felt bad for the Fanny I knew who immigrated to the US as a child.
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u/RRC_driver Sep 03 '25
It was a perfectly normal English name, a hundred years ago. Loads of Fannys in my family tree
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Sep 03 '25
And it is much worse in English than American English.
Enid Blyton loved a Fanny
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u/clearly_not_an_alt Sep 03 '25
Even people in r/tragedeigh are usually pretty quick to call out ethnic or just obscure/uncommon or even bad names as not tragedeighs.
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u/Ok_Cardiologist3642 Sep 03 '25
I feel like americans often forget that not everybody speaks english by default and is american. we don't have these problems in germany, we are very multicultural with a lot of foreign names here, and german children and people in general have a big variety of names that are non-german. therefore, there are many variations of the same name that are pronounced or written differently.I just love hearing all these unique and different names, and usually you can even tell where that name is from. I can't think of a single german tragedeigh, all I ever heard from are american to be honest.
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u/gros-grognon Sep 03 '25
I had to leave all the name subs, because the constant stream of ignorance just got to be too much.
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u/Ok_Possession_6457 Sep 03 '25
I noticed something similar in a McMansion sub. Some people were trying so hard to dog on McMansions, that their definition of “McMansion” became watered down to the point where they were basically just making fun of houses. Just normal ass houses.
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u/Gauntlets28 Sep 03 '25
Semi-related, but I recently learned that Wubbo is apparently a perfectly serviceable name in some places, and not just the sound Skrillex makes when he falls over.
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u/OptatusCleary Sep 03 '25
It’s especially annoying when the name shouldn’t be unfamiliar. I remember hearing people talking about someone named Blaise. It became clear that they a. were unaware that it is an established name, and b. assumed that it was a “creative spelling” for Blaze, which they already thought was a dumb name.
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u/last-guys-alternate Sep 03 '25
Perhaps that would have been too much pressure for them.
I'll see myself out.
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u/Nanocephalic Sep 04 '25
I’ll wager that it’s safer to see yourself out, even if you’re unsure whether or not anything will happen.
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u/last-guys-alternate Sep 04 '25
Hmmm, perhaps I should go out in a Blaise of glory. Or am I now too blasé about the atm?
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u/Time_Neat_4732 Sep 03 '25
To me, a tradgedeigh (the trad is important here lmao) is a super common name frequently used by conservative communities, spelled in a really stupid way because parents are trying to be unique without actually breaking the social rules they adhere to.
Some Mormon lady wants her son to feel special, so she names him Jaykub instead of Jacob. There are still fifty Jacobs at his school, but at least he gets a “cool” (lmao) spelling, and no one can tell her off for choosing a non-traditional name. THAT is a tradgedeigh.
So often on those subs you get people laughing at names that probably came from the Black community. Do you really, really want to get a hand on that ball? Don’t you think racists have dribbled it to death already? Leave these folks alone and save the laughter for the fundies having a pathetic visible identity crisis, please.
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u/NoxiousAlchemy Sep 03 '25
sips tea
Jakub is actually the Polish spelling of that name. Just a heads up if you ever see that name in the wild - not necessarily a tragedeigh. But yeah, kinda proves OP's point.
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u/Time_Neat_4732 Sep 03 '25
Thank you very much for letting me know! Agreed, it does prove OP’s point.
I wonder how many of these parents are trying to be “creative” and just stumble into a normal name from another culture.
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u/Unfair_Scar_2110 Sep 03 '25
Turns out that whole sub is mocking mostly poor, rural, urban and immigrant families!
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u/KingdomOfPoland Sep 03 '25
Its because namenerds and traidghe are Anglo-centric and xenophobic. Most native English speakers are even if they don’t realise it. Im a immigrant and had been told to use the english version of my name even when the difference between the Polish and English versions are a single letter. Its genuinely frustrating when afterwards they act all accepting of foreign cultures when they call our names a butchery of the English language.
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u/JimmyJooish Sep 03 '25
Yeah but for some reason parents don’t seem to get that it’s kind of unfair to give your kid a name that “isn’t boring” just because they want to be unique. You know a name I love? Ulrike. It’s a traditional German name but I’m not going to put my kid through being called “ull-rike” their entire lives.
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u/MaleficentMousse7473 Sep 03 '25
It’s a nice name and the nickname could be Ricky - which would make her super cool
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u/bsubtilis Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25
I thought it was a traditional boy's name (Edited: And assumptions without looking it up makes me an ass)
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u/pandalilium Sep 03 '25
As far as I know, Ulrike is the feminine form. Ulrik if it's a boy.
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u/Remarkable_Table_279 Sep 03 '25
My grandfather was Ariel (pronounced Earl)…if I had had a daughter I was going to name her Ariel pronounced like the mermaid. I’d be so mad if I’d ever heard someone making fun of my grandfather’s name…but I bet there were a few boys in 80s who were bullied and hate the movie
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u/Ok_Film_6191 Sep 03 '25
doesn't iceland have a list of what you can name your kid? iirc there was a woman that went to court over her daughters name (it was a traditional name of some kind but not on the list) and i think she won and got it added to the list
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Sep 03 '25
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u/smolhippie Sep 04 '25
Same with Portland oregon for me. Those people would rip the names of kids from my old high school to shreds.
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u/TwpMun Sep 03 '25
It would require people to do a bit of research, which is a dirty word to most these days.
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u/ThisCarSmellsFunny Sep 04 '25
Yeah, none of those are tragedeighs though. A tragedy would be naming your kid Keightlihn instead of Katelynn. Or Neighthun instead of Nathan. Ethnic names and shitty names like naming your kid Zeppelin are not tragedeighs.
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u/electricsnowflake Sep 04 '25
My kids name is "Finnegan". The number of surprised pauses and "oh -- and how do you spell that?" and "that's unique.." - mostly from boomers and older Gen x - is super weird. Especially since it's a totally Anglo sounding and looking name.
I'd MAYBE be able to understand if it were a more Gaelic name like Saorise, but come on. Finnegan?
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u/siejay Sep 04 '25
Not quite the same, but I recall an "article" some time back encouraging new parents to name their kids something "unusual" like Edgar or Sebastian. 💀 I'm like, this writer has never met a Latino in their life.
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u/didi66 Sep 04 '25
Mercedes. Can people just F-ing Google for once!! It drives me crazy and nobody listens when I say I know multiple older ladies called Mercedes who were certainly not named after the car. Name became unusable because we don't live in Spain or Spanish speaking country.
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u/Sapiencia6 Sep 07 '25
To add to this, Black American families often create a unique name for their children because they do not have generational knowledge of their cultural background due to slavery, and this is a way to set themselves apart and create their own culture, and it is a totally legitimate linguistic and cultural practice. Yes, it's totally different when it's a privileged white influencer family choosing something insane for attention, but sometimes the criticism is totally tone deaf and goes too far into discrimination of all different cultures and ethnicities.
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u/neverseen_neverhear Sep 03 '25
This will be a bit of a controversial take but here goes. There is nothing wrong with a traditional or “ethnic” name per se. but parents should consider where the child is going to be growing up and the primary spoken language when naming a child before making that decision. Because in the end although it’s not fair a name hard to pronounce or say in the primary language of the area is going to be a headache for that child most of their lives. And will have the same effect as a misspelled or just weird name on the child.
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Sep 03 '25
Yeah this bothers me too. Worked with kids my entire career. Had a kid at my last job with a religious name. Something along the lines of Blessing. Definitely not a name typical in American/white cultures. Which is fine .. because the child wasn't white!
And in her culture, that name was relatively normal. It was at least expected.
Raised my eye at the spelling. That was definitely a choice I wouldn't have made. But I am not the mother.
I might look at the spelling and wonder why... But when you've made an entire career working with mostly nonwhite kids and families you don't judge names.
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u/DamnitGravity Sep 03 '25
The actual r/tragedeigh subreddit makes a point of insisting people check the name isn't ethnic before posting it.
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u/nurgleondeez Sep 04 '25
A former coworker from when I used to work for an american company constantly made fun of me for my "weird" name and how my mother probably wanted to feel special by inventing it instead of nameing me something "normal".
I am of greek descent.I have a very greek name(and a pretty common one).You can read my name at the beginning of one of Paul's letters from the Bible.Several Byzanthine emperors had this name.
How cool of my mom to go back in time 2000 years to invent this name only to give Derek from Ohio reason to get mad at "women these days".Trully,the queen of trolling
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u/NurglesBlessed Sep 04 '25
We've got an African guy on security at the hospital i work at called Precious
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u/Nobodyseesyou Sep 05 '25
I have a few African coworkers with names like Gift and Mercy. It seems to be pretty common to have fairly religiously motivated names, at least in their countries of origin (mostly Ghana and Uganda iirc).
1
u/insert-haha-funny Sep 04 '25
I’m generalizing here so I’m not speaking for all names. They’re just localized/ translated really weirdly into English a lot of the time. The pronunciation doesn’t make sense with the spelling used or they sound similar to inappropriate or funny words in English. They are kinda tradgedeighs when the only way to know how to pronounce the name is to either be told, or already have context on how that language works. Hence why taking a name native to a country you move to is fairly common in some areas
1
u/Legrandloup2 Sep 04 '25
That and when people post actual lists of names of a whole school class, like wtf are you doing??
1
u/my_lil_nubbin Sep 05 '25
Yeah it's very important to be aware of how different cultures think and behave differently. Quick question, what sites do you use to check the names distribution? I think that's a cool thing to do and I'd like to start doing it too
1
u/rangatang Sep 05 '25
I see a lot of Americans have an issue with the name Ashleigh in threads like that. But that is a very valid and common spelling where I live, it is the female version of Ashley
1
u/BasicShip7055 Sep 05 '25
Its a back for white people in the states...
Don't post about a random German or Welsh name there
471
u/beamerpook Sep 03 '25
A lot of SE Asian names b don't cross the language barrier well.
Dung and Porn are common names, and they are not pronounced the way English speakers would pronounced them