And The 'Worst Bad Name' Goes to Iona Knipl

The New York Times had a tough time screening the winner of this contest; they received names such as Charman Toilette, Chastity Beltz, Wrigley Fields, Justin Credible, Tiny Bimbo, Michele Lynn (her father was an auto mechanic, but realized it too late). And there were incredible first names such as Chaos and Tutu for girls, and Clever, Cowboy, Crash, Felony, Furious and Zero for boys. There was Unnamed Jones, which was pronounced as “You-NAH-med." There was a mother and daughter combination with Brook Traut and Rainbow Traut respectively. The grand prize, a copy of “Bad Baby Names” by Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback was awarded to Kate, who nominated her fellow resident in Cleveland, Iona Knipl. The panel of judges gave the following reason for choosing this name as the winner: The name Iona Knipl, in addition to being an embarrassing pun, it also set up an inevitable reply from people imagining they were being wittily original. The Times spoke to Iona Knipl, who said she initially disliked her name in school when her fellow students teased her and used to tell her, “I own two." Iona kept her name until she got married and adopted her husband’s last name. But later Iona divorced him and changed it to her original name again. She is very happy with it now. She told the Times: “In school it bothered me, but now I think it’s neat…It’s different.” Dr. Ford, a developmental psychologist at George Mason University talked about the importance of names and said:

Names only have a significant influence when that is the only thing you know about the person…Add a picture, and the impact of the name recedes. Add information about personality, motivation and ability, and the impact of the name shrinks to minimal significance.

Even though it is funny, it must be hard for the person to have names like that. But as Dr. Ford says, “The person is more important than the name."