little name rant

I just read a little story on a name blog: a woman's at-that-time boyfriend was living with a French-Canadian man, who had a name she was unfamiliar with. Her boyfriend didn't particularly like the man, but she thought the name had a pretty sound. Years later they wind up naming their first daughter that name, spelled how the woman heard it phonetically, Mishay.

Okay. First of all, it's weird to name your kid for an old roommate your SO didn't like. (I think the name Aurora's pretty, but knowing my roommate Aurora will turn me off using it forever!) Second, no one could be bothered to find out what this man's actual name was?!

I'm not all that familiar with the Québecois dialect, but my best guess at re-translating that phonetic spelling into French is Miché. Going a bit further, to relate it to an actual word/name, and considering it's being heard by an ear that did not speak French at all, I will guess the name was Michel. A quintessential French masculine name. If I'm right, I'd almost rather her have used the ridiculously manly Misha. French version of Michael or Russian version of Mike? At least it's disguised a bit as Mishay, I don't know.

I don't understand how people name their children without doing even a little research on the name. (Oo, Dima's pretty, let's name our daughter to evoke a burly Russian man! [I see it can be a feminine Arabic name, but still.]}

Or how they can decide on a name without saying the whole thing together first. I just found out my idiot of a cousin did this with his son born today, whom he named Mason frigging Carpenter. By all means, go ahead and use ugly occupational surnames for your son, but not when there's already an occupational surname in his name! *headdesk*