#009 Names (Ridiculous)

It seems new parents are naming their kids some "trendy" new name... lately it's anything that ends in -en or -on: Brayden, Kayden, Jaden, etc.

There's one name in particular that just flat out pisses me off. Someone I know from my high school days spells her baby's name Jaxson. Jaxson??!? Really?!!? I mean, this is the same woman that thinks wonderful is spelled "wounderful" and can't use the proper your/you're to save her life, so I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. But Jaxson? While I despise the spelling of Jaxon, I would have preferred that over the extra 's' in there. It should either be Jaxon or Jackson, but absolutely NOT a combination of the two. The 'x' sound already compensates for the 'cks' sound, so there is positively NO NEED for the 's' to follow the 'x'.

Oh, and she shortens his name to a nickname of "Jaxs" (of course, pronounced "Jacks"). *sigh* No. Just... no.

Just recently I heard the name Braxdon. WTF?! Did this kid's mother select those letters in her last game of Scrabble and attempt to make a name out of them?

Another ridiculous name I heard lately was Barren. The father liked it so much said it sounds very regal. Yes, it would sound regal if you named him Baron, but not Barren. When I hear the word 'barren' I think of a destitute wasteland, but dictionary.com's first definition reads "not producing or incapable of producing offspring". For his sake, I hope he actually can do this later in life, and not make his kid suffer like he had to for a ridiculous first name.

I feel names like these are contributing to the "dumbing down" of our society, and really makes me think of that movie Idiocracy, where the one character's name was Frito, and Fuddrucker's had evolved into Buttfucker's, and you can get sexual favors performed on you at Starbucks. If we keep this up, that is exactly where we're headed. I mean, what is this world coming to when people think it's cool to ignore basic functions of their native language?