Isn’t it weird how one person can ruin a perfectly good name for you forever? Like, you’d sooner sit on the surface of the sun than name one of your kids after that person. This is such a universal feeling that it makes me laugh. (As universal as the idea that you need at least 3 snacks and 5 bottles of water for a 45-minute-long car ride.)
Here are just a few names that are ruined for me for all of eternity.
Clara
Oh Clara, Clara, Clara. I will never forget you, scary girl in one of my college creative writing workshops. You would tear down every word of every piece I ever wrote for that class. No one else did this, to me or anyone else, in any other workshop.
Clara was one of these angry people who hated me on sight, for no reason I could ever determine, except maybe that I smiled a lot. There’s a good chance that wherever she is now, she’s either 1) telling children Santa Claus doesn’t exist, 2) stealing ice cream from a toddler, or 3) pulling the wings off a butterfly.
Mike
I should probably let my hot-ass sister (seriously – any sexy, rich, single guys out there?) explain this one. Suffice it to say, she has one or two ex-boyfriends named Mike.
Phil
When I was in 7th grade, the slang term phat came out, meaning what today we (and by we I mean me) might call amazeballs. I will never forget the day a delinquent in my Social Studies class wrote “Julie is phat” on his desk, and proceeded to tell everyone it was because I was actually f-a-t. Hilarious, Phil. How’s jail treating you these days?
So, who’s ruined a name for you??
Go Jules Go 