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For some reason I want to chime in here. Humor me if I repeat myself. It's late and I'm on asprin.

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I understand where you're coming from. Constant bashing of names and snobbery is annoying. But when it comes right down to it, I don't come on this site to talk about how parents have the right to choose any normal name they want. Obviously they do. When I come on this site, which is a name opinions site, I want to express my opinion. Sometimes that means saying that I think certain parents sucked at naming their children and stating what I would prefer. Not for a second do I assume the parents who named would care what I think. Good thing that I'm talking to a board of namenerds, most of whom have off the wall taste, and not the parents. In my mind, that's what this board is here for. That's what it does for me. It gives me a chance to live in a world where names like Agatha and Alfred and other generally hated names become beautiful. If I had to bow down to popularity and boredom why would I come here?

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I think that it helps to look at it from the eyes of an average namer. If any average person heard me say that I wanted to name my son Alfred, they would think I was insane and that their naming taste was far superior to mine. If the average American saw my Alfred in a birth announcement, they'd probably say something rude about how I'm setting him up to be a joke. It's not just us. We have just as much right to express our minority opinion as they do to express their majority one.

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I guess I just wanted to say that I think the people (and I'm including myself on this one) who tear BAs and sibsets apart and replace them with what they'd prefer have every right to do so, simply because this is a name opinions site. We're not talking to the parents and we're not interested in their opinions, just in the opinions of other namenerds, and I think very few of us carry the delusion that the names we like would go over well in real life. Taking away the chance to change things to what we'd prefer makes this site less fun. Being namenerds it makes it less ours if we can't go crazy just so we don't seem like we're snobs for going against the common. Well, that's how I feel.

This message was edited 12/18/2010, 8:46 PM