What's in a name?

When I was in grade school, there was a kid in my class called Tamany Brooks. In a sea of Michaels, Christophers and Davids, Tamany's name really stuck out. Tamany was a child of the times, he wore his hair in a sort of 'white kid afro', sported a sweater vest & corduroy slacks. Beyond the name, Tamany was a normal joe. I had never met a 'Tamany' before (nor have I since), but didn't think to ask him about it. Nobody, from what I can recall, teased him about his name either. 

In American history class some years later, our teacher briefly touched on the importance of an NYC political organization called Tammany Hall. Maybe Tamany's parents had been political? Maybe a great-great-grandfather had been a founding member of Tammany Hall? Whatever the case, the kid had an interesting name. 

In non-news news: I read on the interwebs today that some woman claimed her daughter had been openly mocked by an airport employee because of the child's name. Before reading further, I thought, Oh, how awful. And then I discovered what the girl's name is. Are you ready for it? It's Abcde. Yep, that's the first five letters of the alphabet. I first read it as 'Abode', then I really looked. Oh, well, I can sort of see why people might make a comment. Obviously, I would have done so out of ear range of the poorly named child. 

In certain countries, it's against the law to saddle your child with a ridiculous name. Here in the states, we can, apparently, give a child a snippet of the alphabet and call it a name and that's kosher. I think that's unfortunate.