At my maternity checkup today, after the nurse left me and before the midwife came in, I was admiring all the cute photos of babies on the bulletin board, and thinking how I love that my area has the highest birth rate in the nation. Then I started noticing the names printed on the announcements. My eyes got wide, and I grabbed a pen and paper from my purse, and had just enough time to jot down these treasures before the midwife came in:
Jaxon
Keejan
Tylee
Karter
Bryndi
Addisyn
I could not make these up. But obviously, someone could. (And, please, if that someone is your neighbor, don’t tell on me for copying down their baby’s name. Shhhhh.)
My Imaginary Blog 
I just don’t understand. I sometimes wonder if these parents hate their children.
Poor Karter didn’t get a y or a j. At least he or she got a non-traditional spelling, and it’s really a last name.
Hey what’s wrong with Jaxon? 🙂
Never heard Keejan. What is that a combination of? Girl/boy or is it for a pet? Just kidding, Laura
Did I say there was anything wrong with Jaxon? 🙂
Laura, should I assume that means you’ve heard of all these other names?
Those are crazy strange.
It appears at this time it once again necessary to link to the Utah Baby Namer:
http://wesclark.com/ubn/
There are some articles/essays linked at the site that explain how Utahns come up with some of these names. There is a logic behind it.
I’m not saying it’s good logic.
I’m just glad my parents didn’t name me danithew.
So you would have been fine with Keejan or Karter, I take it?
Or langbert.
I like the name Jaxon, never heard it, its cute. Addisyn makes me think of Addison’s disease though.
Too much! Oh, but we are totally naming our next daughter JewleyAnn. I think that you can never use too many “y’s” in a name.
It’s good they didn’t spell it Addisin. Then it would sound like naughtiness or prescription drugs.
You have impeccable child-naming taste, by the way.
It seems I have heard most of the other names or some variation of them—except for that one. I guess Tylee is another one I haven’t heard of either, but I can see how these “creative geniuses” pulled this one together from Tyler, and some of those Kylee, etc. names. That other one, I struggle with how that one was discovered—which, I guess among these types of names, itwould be considered “genius” as it is not an OBVIOUS combination. Some Utah/Mormon Mom spent hours putting that one together, and was quite excited to have people repeat the name back once or twice and marvel at it’s unique nature. Note sarcasm.
Although, maybe I am not allowed to say much when my daughter has the name Madison Justice. But that’s another story, and the name involved a birth Mom helping in the name———
My two favorite examples (though I never saw them spelled out) were pronounced Muh-KISS-uh (a girl) and CASH-man (a boy). They were named in Utah County, but have now moved out of state where they will have to spell and explain their names to everyone.
*Here’s hoping my former neighbor isn’t among the blog lurkers. . .
Jen, I like your taste in names too. Also, I just wrote a long, witty comment on your haircut post, but then a computer glitch ate it, and I ranted and raged but gave up on rewriting it. (Anyway, it was a great post and your “soul age” comment made me laugh out loud — also, I think the short cut would be cute with a mix of reddish-to-blond highlights.) (And that is much less than I had written before.) And also, since we’ve now both commented on each others’ blogs, I decree that that makes us blog friends. I’ve always wanted a friend from Toquerville, anyway. (I do have ancestors from there. If I have the story right, Brigham Young sent them down there to start a distillery, and at least some of them became alcoholics.)
Trina, I was perusing the Utah Baby Namer that Danithew posted a link to yesterday, and noticed quite a few boys names incorporating “cache.” I guess it is one of the cool boy name phonemes these days. Also, my mom has said that with all the Braxtons around nowadays, she’s just waiting to run into one with the last name Hicks.
Oh! Baby names are the hardest thing for me! Good luck!
My favorite thing out here in Georgia is that I get asked if “Dallen” (my 5 year old) is Irish?
People think its a wonderful name and very unique. What they don’t know is how many Dallin, Dallon, and Dallen’s there are in utah
Tayah is a name I remember from my Utah days…good luck!
oh my word-
i’ve known so many oddly named people that i lost count a long, long time ago, way before i even tried to remember them. paytons, paydens, dallins, jaxons, sterlings, etc…. trust me, i’ve seen a LOT. but these are the best:
http://wesclark.com/ubn/faves.html
i feel a deep, empathetic pain for these unfortunate children who inevitably must grow up and become adults. that’s probably why so many utah men and women use only their first initial rather than their actual names. “Iron Rod [Smith? Fitzgerald? i dunno]” would undoubtedly go by something like Irene if they were female and Rod if they were male. I certainly would!
sorry- i know that my link was simply a link straight from an earlier posted one. i just couldn’t resist!