Cohen: I’m wondering what psychological effects a name can have.
Zappa: Well, first of all, I knew that they were going to be unique anyway because of certain other attributes, so why not have a name that goes with it. They all like their names and the kids at school do too. They don’t make fun of them; in fact, most of them are jealous of their names. You know, it always amazes me when someone who is in my age group, or even younger, asks me a question like why did you name your children that. It’s a reactionary kind of question. Why the f*ck not name your kids something like that? They’re having a good time. Besides that, if they ever wanted to change their names they can do it. It only costs about $15.
Cohen: You can’t tell from the name Moon Unit whether it’s a boy or a girl. Had Moon Unit been a boy, would you have named him the same thing?
I used to make a joke with friends back in highschool that if I ever had a kid I'd name them something like Bu62bil8 and just say it's pronounced "David" to mess with teachers.
Elon Musk must have heard me and thought I was being serious...
In France during the Revolution we tried to have nice names not tied to saints. We then had a few names like Liberté (Freedom) or "Défenseur des droits" (Defender of the rights).
Also French speaking African people have some cool names like Bijou (Jewel).
I'm all for names with some weight on them, but give the kid a normal name and just tell people, "We call him Kicker." Let the kid make up the story for why. Everywhere has a little line for 'prefers to go by' now, and you can avoid the problems (and don't try to say there aren't any) associated with names that don't fit the average idea of normal.
We had a discussion of employee email address formatting and how to handle collisions in a workplace that hires many, many immigrants. One idea that came to my mind (but wasn't voiced for obvious scope/feasibility concerns) is to do firstname+nickname+lastname so [email protected] displayed as John "Brickman" Smith then during the onboarding process users can select from a list of approved and not-yet-assigned nicknames (I imagine a webpage with a search bar and a "regenerate" button then it shows a list of 10 or 20 nicknames they can select from) and pick something that they like and thinks fits them. It would add some whimsy and worker empowerment but also still prevents interesting situations like someone selecting an inappropriate nickname
Fast forward 20ish years to a post in nominativedeterminism about someone named The Shovel being caught burying the bodies of his parents that he murdered
Shovels are actually very handy. I can think of 2 book series where a shovel is a vital tool. The best example is a ww2 fiction with magic where a company of troops were strapped with the fasted flying jet engine a body could handle and dominated the battlefield, well they killed so many soldiers they ran out of bullets. So instead they started flying around in the air going 60-100 mph smacking people in the head with their shovels. They massacred people. Oh it was so terriblely good.