Naming the child

In our hunt for the name of our coming little boy, Jesse and I spent a few minutes before bed each night for the past few weeks reading through "35,000+ baby names: the largest selection of popular and unusual names from around the world." 

While the book certainly had a large selection of popular names, it also had quite the selection of unusual names.  Here's some of the best ones, sorted into categories (and my favorite ones are in bold, so feel free to just go read those if this is too long ;D): 

Sisi-born on Sunday

Jojo -born on Monday

Ebo-born on Tuesday

Fifi -born on Friday

Kizza-born after twins

yep, in Fanti, it is apparently common to only be recognized by what day of the week you were born on, or where you are in the lineup of your siblings. 

English names are pretty funny--most of them are simply practical (ex: Sawyer means "wood worker"...not too surprising) but there are a few that I found particularly humorous:

Algernon-bearded, wearing a mustache (for those of you that have read/seen the Importance of Being Earnest, this one is pretty funny)

Arledge-lake with the hares (random?)

Drake-dragon; owner of the inn with the dragon trademark (so if a guy owns an inn with a dragon trademark, do you just call him Drake?)

Farrow-piglet (hee hee hee :D)

London-fortress of the moon (this one is just awesome)

Tolbert-bright tax collector vs. Toller (English) tax collector (ah, the difference a b and a t make)

The American names are by far the most unusual.  Most of them are Ja+something, like Janeil, or Lashawn, etc. And then, there are ones that could only be American...

Bubba-good old boy.

Lefty-left handed

Yep. 

There's a couple famous ones that have unusual meanings:

Caesar (latin)-long haired

Cicero (latin)-chickpea (say what?)

Elvis (Scandinavian) wise (hm...I'm not sure wisdom typically leads to drug overdoses...)

Kenneth (irish) handsome (get it? Ken? like the doll?)

Plato (greek) broad shouldered 

There's a bunch that are oddly specific about the child's birth:

Bal (Sanskrit)-child born with lots of hair (hahaha)

Gyasi (akan) marvelous baby

Iniko (Ibo)-born during bad times 

Kabiito (rutooro) born while foreigners are visiting (random?)

Kato (runyankore) second of twins

Kifeda  (luo) only boy among girls

Nwake (Nigerian) born on market day

Ogbay (Ethiopian) don’t take him from me

Ottah (Nigerian) thin baby

Mori (madi) born before father finished paying wife’s dowry (this one just seems passive-aggressive...)

And then there's some weird ones!

Cunningham (irish) village of the milk pail (thanks, irishmen.  This one is pretty random)

Brandeis (Czech)-dweller on a burned clearing (similarly random)

Dingbang (Chinese) protector of the country (say it with me: Dingbang.  Yes.  That's what I'll name my first born son)

Koukalaka (Hawaiian) a form of douglas (koukalaka? Douglas? I don't even get the connection with that one)

Kwende (ngoni) let’s go (right now!)

Nangwaya (mwera) don’t mess with me (a name for a tough guy?)

Nkunda (runyankore) loves those who hate him

Rangsey (Cambodian) seven kinds of colors (like a rainbow?)

Rohit (hindi) big and beautiful fish 

Ruhakana (rukiga) argumentative (yep, name your baby "argumentative." cause you can already tell.)

But without comparison, the most unusual names are Moquelumnan- a Penutian language spoken by the Miwok in the great interior valley of California. Check these out:

Hesutu-picking up a yellow jacket’s nest

Kono-squirrel eating a pine nut

Lise-salmon’s head coming out of the water

Leyati-shape of an abalone shell

Lokni-raining through the roof

Metikla-reaching a hand under water to catch a fish

Telutci-bear making dust as it runs

Tiimu-caterpillar coming out of the ground

Tiktu-bird digging up potatoes

Tumu-deer thinking about eating wild onions

Utatci-bear scratching itself

Wilanu-pouring water on flour

Yoskolo-breaking off pinecones

Yotimo-yellow jacket carrying food to its hive

I'm just not sure how you could know a deer was thinking about eating wild onions, or why you would want to name you child that.  

We have a list that's about half this long of names we found that we actually DO like, so we'll be sorting through those soon and hopefully coming up with a suitable name for little boy!