We’ve all probably done some Googling about our names at some point, right? Trying to find out what they mean in different cultures, what’s the origin, along with pestering parents about how they came up with the name and what it means to them.
Well, sometimes you’re better off not knowing - as one TikToker found out, retelling the unusual story of how she was named after her father’s affair partner.
More info: TikTok
Sometimes names have cute and sensitive origin stories, while others may be funny or even sad
Image credits: Josh Willink
"So I feel like most people who are named after somebody have like a cute story behind it, or they're named after somebody really special"
"That is not the case for me. If it was not the case for you either, stitch this and let me know. However, I'll go first. So I was my parents' first child. And when my mom was pregnant with me, my parents had an agreement that if I was a boy, my mom was going to get to name me after my grandfather. And if I was a girl, my dad was going to get to name me. Well, skip forward to the day that I was born - my mom wound up having to have a C-section because my big ass head wouldn't fit through the birth canal."
Image credits: @keepingitkristina
"She was super drugged up after that, and my dad filled out all of my paperwork. And, at last, he chose to name me Kristina"
"When my mom came to, I guess she didn't really hate the name, so she just kind of went with it, and you know that everything was fine for a few months. Until my mom found out that my dad was cheating on her. And guess what the woman's name was? Kristina! So if he messed up and called her the wrong name, he could say he was talking about me."
Image credits: @keepingitkristina
Watch the original video here:
Kristina's parents had a couple more children after which the dad abandoned them, going on to have more kids with other women
The woman sharing the story, Kristina Fletcher, told her audience how she was named. Her mom and dad had an agreement that if their child was a boy, the mom would get to name him in honor of her grandfather, and if it was a girl, the dad would name her.
Long story short, a girl, Kristina, was born and while the mom was heavily sedated after a C-section, the dad filled out all of her birth paperwork, including entering her name.
Some time passed in their home and all was well, until the mom caught wind that the dad was cheating on her with a woman by the name of Kristina.
According to the comments by Kristina, her parents went on to have two more kids, leaving them all when the TikToker was 3. It seems that he only reached out to contact her and her sisters only after they became adults.
So, what’s in a name? Ever wonder how the names that we get came about?
There are a lot of naming conventions and different structures of naming. You’re probably used to the name and surname setup. In some cultures, the surname is replaced by a patronymic or a matronymic, which are based on your father and mother respectively.
In Spain and most Latin American countries, two surnames are used, one from the father’s family and another from the mother’s.
Another naming convention used is the Arabic one. Arabic names therefore follow the structure of name, father’s name, grandfather’s name, and family name.
On the other hand, East Asian cultures place their family name first, followed by their given name. Japanese people had used the western naming convention of putting their given names first until not so long ago, but have now reverted to the eastern one, requesting western publications to follow suit and write their names in this order.
Image credits: keepingitkristina
So, now we’ve heard a bit about how names are structured, but what do they mean? I must preface that I’m not really qualified to tell you whether a certain name means that you’re destined to become the ultimate leader of a tribe devoted to worshiping you, but we can talk about what their etymology is.
If you are wondering what your name is or what to name your upcoming child, Behind The Name is a great resource. It’s bonkers how much data you can find about names and their meaning on the site.
For example, if you’re interested in scripture, you can look up biblical names and their meanings according to the Hebrew, Greek, And other languages used in the Testaments.
Besides conventional names, various cultural or regional names, you can also see a visualization of their popularity in various countries. These visualizations allow you to get an interesting insight about name popularities across the years - did you know that Jennifer, Joyce, and Brianna are all Celtic names?
You can also generate random names on a whole bunch of criteria, including mythological and fantastical ones, for all your book-writing and video-game-character naming needs.
Us humans and our tradition of naming things are pretty fun, especially when it comes to naming things very human names. I’ve known people who name their cars with human names, it’s also especially funny when people name their pets with very human names.
Why should you call your dog Sparky or Rocket, when you can call them “Mr. Stevenson” and “Thomas Jefferson”.
If you’d like to read more of these funny human and not-so-human names, there’s another Bored Panda article waiting for you about the funniest names from PetFinder.
The original video by Kristina got more than 1 million views, almost 215k likes and more than 7k comments. Commenters shared their own sad or funny stories about their name. I invite you to share stories about your name or nickname in the comments! Go wild!
Kristina's community shared their own funny and sad stories about their names
