Carmen Cohen.

Her mother called her Carmen. Her father called her Cohen. She didn't know if she was Carmen or Cohen.

We know that many common English surnames come from the professions that the plebs have engaged in throughout the centuries.

Cooper, Smith, Carpenter, Mason, Fletcher, Taylor are some of the common ones.

But what on earth inspired "Sidebottom"?

Now at rest in the Dunkield cemetry at the foot of the Grampians lies my mother's Sunday School teacher, one Miss Ophelia Dicky.

Never married.

I was dithering around recently researching some family connections. While I was trawling through the register of the Edinburgh Academy, I noticed they at one time employed someone by the name of the Rev. Sheepshanks - I wonder where a name like that would come from.

Frank Zappa named his children Moon Unit and Dweezil - I'm pretty sure they kept their names when they grew up.

Byron Bay is full of names like -
"Moonbeam," "Jade," "Tiger-Lily,"
"Skye,"
then there's weird name spellings of
ordinary names like "Christopher,"
to "Kristofer," and "Lisa," to
"Lyzah," and so on.

Ethnic names should also be carefully chosen -
especially if the child will continue to live
in Australia. I don't know about other
nationalities but Lithuanian Christian names
can give any Aussie kid the horrors (Thank
God my parents were sane). How'd you like to
be tagged with names like:

Boys names:

1) Vytautas,

2) Gediminas.

3) Algimantas.

4) Giedrius.

5) Romualdas.

6) Bronius.

7) Raimondas.

8) Gintaras.

And these are the short ones.

Girl's names:

1) Ruta.

2) Rasa.

3) Birute.

4) Nijole.

5) Aldona.

6) Danguole.

7) Danute.

8) Grazina.

Why can't people just be more considerate - when
choosing a name for their child. My girlfriend
who's of Celtic ancestry chose "Gwilymn," instead of
William for her son's name. He was not a happy chappie
growing up. But now he's used to it.