Unusual real names: Marijuana Pepsi, Tahiti Starship

Here are some strange names I found in an MSNBC article published just a few days ago:

  • Apocalipsis (female)
  • Crystal Sunshine Turpin Lemons (female)
  • Cupcake (female)
  • Drift Wood (female), sister of Timber (see below)
  • Marijuana Pepsi (female), who has sisters with the very normal names Kimberly and Robin
  • Mighty Fine (male)
  • Tahiti Starship (female), who says: “My parents were hippies. They said they were dreaming of Tahiti. And they named me Starship after the band.”
  • Timber Wood (male), brother of Drift (see above)
  • Yellow Light (male), who I’ve blogged about before

Here’s how Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer, who managed to overcome her name and accomplish some very cool things, got her name:

Sawyer’s aunt, Mayetta Jackson of Chicago, clearly remembers when the name was picked in 1972. The newborn’s mother and father were products of the post-Woodstock era when reefer was rampant.

“And they would cool off with a Pepsi,” she said, which makes you think it’s lucky for Sawyer that it wasn’t Coke instead. “I thought it was crazy,” her aunt said about the name, “but they were such fun-loving people that it suited them.”

She’s called “Pepsi” by friends and family.

Sources:

5 thoughts on “Unusual real names: Marijuana Pepsi, Tahiti Starship

  1. Have you ever read The Outsiders? A few of the protagonists have unusual names (which were their real names): Ponyboy and Sodapop and Dallas (all brothers).

  2. From “Not Just Any Tom, Dick or Harry” (1990) in the Harvard Crimson:

    Take Yellow Light Breen ’93, whose name comes from a poem his parents wrote to celebrate his birth. Breen–who “just goes by Yellow”–says that the lack of color in the typical Harvard name makes it extremely hard to remember.

    Breen says he feels uncomfortable when he can’t recollect the names of new acquaintances. Conversely, he says, almost no one forgets who he is.

    “I’m the guy with the weird name,” Breen explains.

    […]

    Generally, Breen says that he tries to act as though there were nothing unusual about his name. He concedes, however, that he has occasionally thought about changing it, but has always decided against the idea.

    The article also mentions students named Unity Star Johnson, Essence R. McGill, Season Natema Ray and Caraway Seed.

    Caraway said “her name was chosen by her father, who as a child was often asked “What kind of Seed are you?” In order to save his children from a similar fate, he decided to name three of them after plants: Caraway, Cotton and Huckleberry.”

  3. I know Tahiti Starship! We worked together on a project for the Sundance Film Festival a number of years ago. She is a wonderful person.

  4. Marijuana Pepsi was in the news again recently. She earned her Ph.D., and her thesis was titled: “Black names in white classrooms: Teacher behaviors and student perceptions.”

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