DarrenBarefoot.com

I happen to own the top Google search results ranking for the phrase “worst baby names ever”. As such, people occasionally come by and leave a comment on the related post with stories of bad baby names.

A good portion of these have geeky connotations, so I thought I’d generate a little list using that entry, the site it linked to, and a bit of creative searching. There’s no way to verify if these are all legit, but they’re all from reports I found on the web–I didn’t make any of them up.

Here’s the list thus far, feel free to offer additions:

1. Strider - It could have been worse, he could’ve been named Pippin.
2. Arwen - Again, it could have been Eowyn. Plus, it’s quite a pretty name.
3. Lestat - “I can’t understand why junior keeps wearing all that white makeup…”
4. Neo - You might as well name the kid “Jesus”.
5. Keanu - See above.
6. Nikita - Apparently from the Elton John song, not from La Femme Nikita, but we can hope.
7. Nero - “Son, you’re named for a a Roman Emperor. No pressure.”
8. Maximus - See above.
9. Cosmo Ranger - I got nothing.
10. Eaton - Last name Seamen. Not so much geeky as just plain cruel.
11. Cleopatra Evita - Presumably she’s the daughter of drag queens.
12. Corran - Apparently a character in the Star Wars books.
13. Mara Jade - Another similarly non-movie Star Wars character.
14. Anakin - Bound to be a mouth breather.
15. Luke - Climbed the charts from 228th in the seventies to 42nd today.
16. Ada - Destined to work in a cubicle among smelly coding boys.
17. Wesley - Fairly common, but geeky when inspired by Star Trek.
18. Jadzia - Apparently in 1998, there were 27 baby girls named after Deep Space Nine’s Dax.
19. Ryker - In that same year, 80 baby boys were making Number One in their diapers.
20. B’elanna - Well, at least the apostrophe will simplify things.
21. Kirk - Apparently Kirk Cameron was named after the Shatnerian one.
22. Moon Unit - Thank you, Papa Zappa.
23. Amadeus - Retro geeky.
24. Mars - I know, it’s also a Greek god. But it gets dodgy when his sister is named Venus. And what if you named a kid Pluto and he got downgraded to a mere dwarf planet?
25. Ripley - Likes her machine gun with a flamethrower chaser.
26. Dade - This one’s pretty obscure (but apparently legit). I mean, how many people saw Hackers?
27. Damien - You know, like the Prince of Darkness? Rose in popularity thanks to The Omen.
28. Version 2.0 - Obvious, and apparently true.