Babies Named After A Brand

from the not-a-good-idea dept

You may remember during the dot com boom, the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) offered parents money to name their babies IUMA, and some actually took them up on the offer. A year later, a married couple tried to auction their baby's name off to major corporations on eBay. Last year, Acclaim entertainment offered $10,000 to anyone willing to legally change their name to that of a video game character. It seems these companies are going the wrong route by paying parents to name their kids after certain brands. Many parents are naming their kids after brands for free - sometimes causing distress in the family. The mother of one of six American boys named Timberland, claims she wanted to call the boy Kevin, but her (since divorced) husband insisted the boy be called Timberland or Reebok. The article names plenty of other unfortunately named children, who are going to have hell to pay in school. There's a Gouda, a Bologna, a Xerox and apparently Camry is an increasingly popular boys name. Please, please, please do not name your child Techdirt.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2003 @ 7:02am

    No Subject Given

    I don't know .... TechDirt for a kid ... not bad. I'm thinking boy, graduated (because the school had to), wearing a mullet hair cut well into his 50s.

    Oh yeah. Imaginery works great.

    Not dissing you Mike, for whatever reason, the name really works for many of my southern relatives. :-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    data64, 29 Sep 2003 @ 7:21am

    Outrage

    How Outrageous ? We cannot allow ourselves to be sucked in by these crass comercial practises. We need a new law to regulate this.

    Jokes aside, can the parents be sued for naming their kid "Nike", if Nike did not
    want their trademark to be used as a baby-name ?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous coward, 29 Sep 2003 @ 8:55am

    Re: Outrage

    As I finished reading this item, my eye caught the headline of the next item, only I read it as "Maybe Parents aren't Such a Hot Idea".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Munich, 29 Sep 2003 @ 8:55am

    Nike Royalties

    Keep in mind "Nike" isn't exactly original, but taken from a GreeK (or was it Roman) god of victory.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    aNonMooseCowherd, 29 Sep 2003 @ 12:37pm

    No Subject Given

    Please, please, please do not name your child Techdirt.

    How about treating the "i" as a variable and using Techd1rt for the first-born, Techd2rt for the next, and so on.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    me, 29 Sep 2003 @ 8:09pm

    No Subject Given

    in Hong Kong, the name thing takes on a whole new dimension.

    popular names here include kleenex, durex, denon, and gucci

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Marina, 18 Aug 2004 @ 1:19pm

    Re: Nike Royalties

    It's actually a Greek GodDESS, so I would hope that "Nike" is a girl. But yeah, maybe original trademarks could get away with suing but names such as Nike and Reebok and such can't sue because that would be pretty much like Britney Spears suing a Joe Spears for naming his kid "britney."

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Mpls Man, 3 Aug 2005 @ 1:58am

    Raw Data

    Playboy had a breakdown of these corporate names given to children in one of thier issues under their Raw Data section. Xerox, Pepsi, and Hennesey were my favorites.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.