A rose, be it any other name, would smell as sweet

A rant in today's SMH has touched upon one of my pet hates that is worth mentioning here:

12. Offspring of the rich and famous whose names are destined to send them into early therapy. As in: "Cinnamon! You've left the #*@* door open and the #*@!# paparazzi have got in again."

13. Offspring of the less-well-off whose names need a footnote to spell correctly. As in: "Shantelle, stop pulling Kodie's hair and share those cigarettes."

Not many people know it but, despite my far left political views, I have a thin streak of conservatism. My opinions about names is a good example. Just like this Heckler writer, I really can't see why people pick such ridiculous names or deliberately misspell sensible names. People no longer spell words with whatever combination of letters is close enough phonetically (the way they did before the printing press) -- no-one acutally spells "fish" as "ghoti" -- so why do they insist on giving their kids names that look like typos or make them seem illiterate?

Short names as the whole name also annoy me: Amy is short for Amelia; Jack for John; Kate for Katherine -- they are not names in themselves. Don't write the nickname on the birth certificate, write the full name and call them by the short one! Giving your child half a name is just short-changing them in the long run.

That being said, there is one trend in names that I've noticed and approve of. Chinese Australians usually give their children an English first name followed by a Chinese middle name. This seems very practical. The trend I've noticed is the sorts of English names they choose for their children -- they're very old-fashioned. Of course this is a generalisation but I have observed a far higher proportion of amusingly old-fashioned English names for Asians than in the Anglo-Celtic population. To prove my point, here is a short list of some of the more amusing names I've come across, all from relatively young people:

Alfred
Dorcas
Edith
Elaine
Esther
Eva
Everett
Irene
Iris
Janet
Judith
Lionel
Penny
Phyllis

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Anyway, I think this is great for two reasons. Firstly, there are far too many Matthews and Nicoles but I can guarantee that there won't be more than one Phyllis in any class! Secondly, some of these names would become extinct if it weren't for this sudden resurgence. A case in point is Dorcas (a student in one of my classes, as are most of the others). I thought the name was made-up til I read it in a book and realised it's a real name, albeit an endangered species.