From Detroit news:
FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A Mid-Michigan woman said she was fired for taking part in Take Your Child to Work Day, but her employer said she ignored company policy.
Now, Qwerda Evans is out of a job and the company is standing by its decision.
“I’ve always gone above and beyond for this company, and for them to do this after eleven years,” said Evans.
When TV5 went to her former place of employment, Check ‘N Go in Flint Township, a sign now advertises an opening for her old job.
Evans said her daughter had been welcomed with open arms three or four times, but the last time wasn’t so welcoming. She received a pink slip. Evans’ 11-year-old daughter, Precious, witnessed the firing on Take Your Child To Work Day . . .
I’m posting this not to talk about the stupidity of a woman bringing her kid without permission to her job as a grocery store cashier. I just wanted to talk about her name.
Qwerda.
How does that conversation go?
“Aww, honey, look at our baby girl. She’s beautiful.”
“She is. We need a beautiful name to belong to such a beautiful baby.”
“Something unique. I know just the thing. I was working at my job, just staring at my keyboard, when it hit me.”
“The keyboard?”
“No, a name!”
“Oh. What is it?”
“A name? It’s something used to identify a specific person so you don’t have to just point at them and say ‘Hey, you.’”
“No, what name did you come up with?”
“Ohhhh. Qwerty!”
“…”
“Honey?”
“Qwerty. You want to call our daughter fucking Qwerty?”
“Yeah! It’s unique and nobody will ever forget her name!”
“But . . Qwerty? Are you hearing yourself?”
“Yes!”
“You’re an idiot, woman. Qwerty is obviously a boy’s name! We’ll call her Qwerda instead.”
“Oh, baby, good idea! I’ll go call the kids and tell them the news.”
“Okay. Tell Yuiopete and Asdfella that I love them.”
Enjoy this post? Try these:The one where I talk about men and women and piss everyone off.
The Love of a Mother
Elitist baby names
Twitter: Barking_Mad
says:
Dammit! I wish I hadn’t gotten my tubes tied after all! I could have named the next one, BNgMN!
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@Audrey at Barking Mad, ooh, that’s a genius name.
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Twitter: alotofnothing
says:
I used to work at a staffing agency where we kept a list of all the dumbass names people had. I would KILL for that list today. Though I do remember a Carol Carol being on the list.
And you didn’t even touch on the daughter’s name, “Precious.” People are sad, sad human beings.
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@Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing], I don’t mind “Precious” as a name. It’s like “Faith” and “Grace” to me.
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Twitter: kimt205
says:
They must be related to Shi-thead, Daquiri and Femalley.
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@Kim, and Orangejello and Lemonjello.
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The fact that you even put two and two together leads me to believe you need to take Oprah’s No Phone Zone texting pledge.
That, and I’m totally jealous of your genius.
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@mommypie, texting? That’s how keys are laid out on a normal keyboard, which I’ve been using, in some incarnation, for 28 years.
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Twitter: Amanda234
says:
They forgot to add the Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire to her daughter’s name. She’s gonna be pissed
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@Amanda, heh. I prefer the porn version from 30 Rock.
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Twitter: VerdantDude
says:
I can’t remember who it was, but some comedian, back in the day that Volkswagen was doing their Fahrvergnügen campaign, said that they didn’t know what Fahrvergnügen was but that they knew what it was gonna be. The name of some unfortunate child to ignorant parents. So yeah…
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@B.E. Earl, and I’m sure it is now. Poor little Fahrver.
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Twitter: ellemmes
says:
I went to school with a kid named Sunny Rainey. A boy. Named Sunny Rainey.
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@Lisa, not even Sonny? Poor guy.
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@Lisa, my mom had a good friend named “Thorny Rose” and NO ONE clued in on that being odd. I was a teen when looking at my mom’s yearbook & she pointed to the girl & said her name. (I knew they called her Thorny, up until my teens I did not know her last name was Rose.) When I questioned that being her “real name” my mom was all like, “Oh yeah, I never thought of that as being odd.”
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Twitter: blondefabulous
says:
I took my runt to work that day. I also asked first, so therefore I still have my job. Funniest name I have ever heard have been Quinneshia, Peterica, and Bunka. I figure the drugs they gave the mothers during childbirth must not have worn off when the time came to name the kids!
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@Blondefabulous, Peterica – I guess if you’re dead set on naming your child Peter regardless of gender, that works!
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Newbies needing names, not necessarily nomenclature. Nuts!!
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@avatgardener, High school classmate:April Shauer.
Dad’s army buddy R B Jones. R(only) B(only) Jones, became Ronly Bonley Jones.
My fav first name, from Clint Eastwood movie – - Echo.
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@avatgardener, Ronly Bonly Jones is a great name. See how nice it is when you leave real comments instead of the alliterative ones?
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@Avitable, I like her alliteration efforts. They break up the comment stream and they are creative.
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I knew a child named Tequila. Needless to say her parents had substance issues.
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@Holla, and for that child, it’s basically her destiny to be an alcoholic. Can’t avoid it!
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OKay so I have a name for ya! Back in the day of my career as a coked out stripper *ahem* no judgement please! I knew a girl who *danced* by the name of Jasmine, pretty common stripper name right? Well her real name was Sparkle Unique Johnson….To me that means her momma was a hooker and wanted her to continue in the family business!!!!
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@Deb, Sparkle Unique – what a great name!
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Lucky for Querty that her parents didn’t have twins. Probably would have given them names like Juan and Two. Or Jose and Jos-B.
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@LAB, or Qwerda Junior.
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Twitter: GrandeMocha
says:
My latest favorite name is Ashole – pronounced A – sho – lae.
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@GrandeMocha, that’s a great one!
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Twitter: themuskrat
says:
Querda made it to our top 5 but got eliminated. My friend Jesse (whom I’ve written about before on my blog) wrote and self-published this book you’d probably like, but I don’t know if it’s still available: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0972428607/ref=kinw_rke_tl_1 It’s full of gems like “Querda.”
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@muskrat, lot of stupid people in the world, so it makes sense that there are a lot of stupid names too!
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Precious is not much better. We need more witchy sounding girlie names, like Esmerelda.
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@Grant, or Samantha.
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Twitter: hismuse
says:
I’m totally naming my kid, boy or girl, Spacey…and you can’t stop me!
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@Robin, I won’t stop you but I’ll totally mock you!
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Apple is a pretty poor name, except for a brand. Brooklyn is too, except for a borough of New York. If your going to be different, name your kid something practical like “HeyYou” or something to make their lives hell in high school like “Pha-Q.”
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@Hockeymandad, I kind of like “Apple”, though.
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I know of a kid named Courvoisier.
And my thought through that whole article was the same as yours!
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@Sybil Law, awesome. Courvoisier. Someone who’s destined to become an alcoholic!
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I just found out that a random acquaintance of mine is going to name their child Levi after the brand of tobacco the father chews. And a friend of mine named her daughter Corvette. I don’t understand.
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@Allyson, are you sure they’re not naming Levi after Levi Johnston?
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Twitter: Dumblond
says:
HAHA! Qwerda…her mom must have come up with that one in a fever dream.
When my husband and I were picking names for our children, we looked at every possible way that some little assholes could make fun of their names. We almost missed the boat when my husband wanted to name our daughter Genalia (his grandmother’s middle name, which was bad enough). We didn’t even realize a problem until my dad pointed out how much it sounded like genitalia.
Oh shit. Thanks Dad!
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@Dumblond, you dodged a bullet there.
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Twitter: LeSombre
says:
Dude, I heard of a girl named Clitorine.
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@LeSombre, I bet she’s a real catch.
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Twitter: poppycede
says:
Yup, that’s where my mind went too. She’s lucky, perhaps, that they didn’t round it out and call her Sqwerda.
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@Poppy, that makes me think of Squirtle from Pokemon.
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Twitter: pjacksoncrew
says:
Adam, the name “Precious” is not like the name “Faith”.
I missed the name “Qwerty” but picked up on and giggled at “Precious”.
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@Peggy, it’s not? Why not?
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Twitter: pjacksoncrew
, May 20th, 2010: 10:07 PM
@Avitable, because my daughters name is Faith and whenever I hear the name “Precious” I think of the movie. I refuse for it to be the same.
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@Peggy, ah, I see. Before the movie, though, would you have thought it was a weird name?
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Twitter: pjacksoncrew
, May 20th, 2010: 10:13 PM
@Avitable, Not weird, per say. But I wouldn’t loop it in the “Faith”, “Hope”, “Grace”, or “Charity” bundle.
I would loop it in the “Sunshine”, “Skye”, and “Blossom” bundle.
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Twitter: elizabethbarone
, May 24th, 2010: 3:09 PM
@Peggy, Every time I hear the name Precious, I think of a poodle.
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@Elizabeth Kaylene,
I think of a ring and a strange skinny almost completely hairless hobbit thing looking at said ring like he wants to do “naughty” things to the ring…
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I live in Flint MI and this name is nothing. I volunteered in the school district reading program and had a little girl named Sytcoriya. Any guess on the pronunciation? Sequoia! Also, an autistic child named Autonio.
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@Lisa, wow, that’s an interesting spelling of Sequoia.
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Twitter: elizabethbarone
, May 24th, 2010: 3:11 PM
@Lisa, Gee, now you know why your kids all had such a hard time reading.
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We always joke that the kids running around Ikea’s children’s play area are all called exactly like the mattresses they were conceived on. Or whatever piece of furniture their parents chose to do it on… Listen closely when they’re paging the parents to pick up their kids. It’s hilarious.
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@Katharina, I hate Ikea and refuse to go in there, but if I did, I would totally listen for that.
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I went to school with a guy named Peter Short. That was his entire name. I am not kidding. His parents were cruel. Oh so cruel.
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@Julie, poor guy.
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Totally with you. That’s a parakeet name. I just don’t get why people do this to their kids. They’re not pets, peoples. When I was pregnant with Child #3/Boy #2, my pediatrician politely asked if I’d chosen a name yet. I told him, “Paul.” My hubby loved that name and I was less than thrilled because nothing says “old man” like Paul. Anyway, my pediatrician let out a huge sigh and says “Thank you. It’s a boy name, it’s a normal name and it’s short and easy.”
And, because I’m crazy like that, I chose to spell it “Paul.” There’s a kid in my other son’s class named Aaiyden and Evhan. There’s no mom around so I bluntly asked the dad if he was responsible for saddling those boys with those spellings. He admitted yes.
Seriously though. Stop naming kids parakeet names.
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@Kristin, you didn’t go with Pawl? So sad.
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Trust me when I tell you that this is FAR from the strangest name in this area. Working EMS in Flint for the last 6 years, I’ve come across some really odd names. There was Aquanetta, whose mother told one of my medics that she picked the name cuzz she LOVED Aqua-Net hairspray. There were the kids who were named after flavors of Jell-o. And I will never forget the totally classy tribute to STDs – HERPEESHA. I shit you not. o_O
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@Leslee, Herpeesha?!? Awesome!
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Twitter: mrlady
says:
My god-daughters name is Canada (not kidding) because her mother thought that Candida would be a lovely name for a girl (I wish I was kidding), so we talked her down a consonant.
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@Mr Lady, Jesus. Some people!
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No post yet?
I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your badge and your gun.
(Your blogger status and your keyboard)
Sorry, you’re kicked off the force.
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Seriously? I dated a guy who’s next door neighbor was named Harry…his last name was Bush. Harry Bush? You know this guy had to be teased as a kid.
His wife’s name was Rose. She didn’t have to grow up with being called Rose Bush, but I’m sure she caught some flack after she was married.
What did they name their daughter? Try Deanna. Not bad until you shorten it…Dee Bush. You’d think they would have given it a little more thought.
Totally true story…I can’t make this shit up.
On another note: My son and his girlfriend are expecting their first child. With his last name being Evans, he was teasing that if it’s a boy he is going to name him Devon Evan Evans. After much hoopla from me he is now threatening to name him Shark Attack. I know he’s just kidding…but if he’s not? Devon Evan Evans doesn’t sound that bad after all.
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Twitter: s_csr
says:
Names that my mother encountered while working as an OB/GYN nurse in the public aid section of a local hospital : Dorito Lasagna; twin boys – Limejello and Orangejello; Urethra. Yes. Seriously. That’s only the tip of the iceberg…the rest of the ‘berg is lost in the murky abyss of my brain at this time.
My niece’s name is Echo.
My cousin’s kids’ names are Grace, Hope and Faith.
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Twitter: s_csr
, May 23rd, 2010: 11:09 PM
Oh! And my niece (Echo) has a girl in her class named Yermajesty….which is the same girl who likes to make fun of my niece for having a weird name.
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Twitter: elizabethbarone
, May 24th, 2010: 3:14 PM
@Sheila (CSR), Yo, yer majesty around?
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Twitter: elizabethbarone
says:
When I was doing my field work during my stint as an Elementary Education major, there was a little girl named Asia — pronounced Ah-shae. I must have called her Asia a thousand times before I heard the right pronunciation. Then I felt really confused because I wanted to feel bad for butchering her name, but the blame should be all on her parents!
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