Some people are just not lucky in the name department. Like their parents were determined to make their life harder from the second they were born!

A quick reddit search will give you gems like “Trashton” and “Kelvice”, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

If you really want absurd names, check the tabloids! Celebrities have had a monopoly on bad baby names for as long as I can remember.

“Northwest” immediately comes to mind, or little “Apple” Paltrow. What was it Rachel wanted to name her baby on Friends? “River.”

But as this user’s story shows, even seemingly normal names can be twisted into something less than appropriate!

When assigning emails to his schools’ teachers, his boss ordered him to follow the format exactly, even when poor Greg Roper got the username “Groper”!

Check it out!

Usernames must follow district education policies

At my first job decades ago, as the junior employee on the IT staff for a school, I was in charge of setting up email addresses for new teachers.

The district had Microsoft Exchange for email and the education policy was that all teacher email addresses would follow the same format:

First initial then last name, unless we had another teacher of the same name (which never happened, because we only had ~400 teachers in the district.)

But a new teacher posed a bit of a problem under this naming system.

However, we did have a new teacher – Greg Roper – who I decided to just set up as simply “roperg”.

Once the new usernames were set up, my boss, our bureaucratic assistant principal reviewed them all, and sent a note to fix Greg’s username to comply with the standard format.

Well I didn’t see the note until my next work day, and by that time principal’s assistant had left for a vacation to Hawaii.

Facing a deadline to publish all the emails for the school website, and back-to-school email, I went ahead and followed orders.

But OP’s boss hadn’t quite thought his request through.

Username changed to “groper”, email set to groper@washingtonunified.org*.

Pushed to production. And everything was quiet for about a week.

But then students began to receive their welcome emails, directing them to contact their teachers using the newly assigned email addresses.

Next thing I knew, I got an urgent, slightly flustered call from the principal himself.

I printed off that email directive from the assistant principal, and went up to the principal’s office, where I found both of them sitting side-by-side.

Apparently, several concerned parents had already contacted the school, questioning the appropriateness of the teacher’s email address.

But in a move that shocked no one, OP’s boss blamed HIM for the mess-up.

The assistant principal, still tan from his vacation and wearing one of those obnoxious Hawaiian hats (kinda like this), started to low-key chastise me for not catching this sooner.

Well his sunburned face turned even redder from embarrassment when I plopped down the email thread from a week earlier.

That is, the thread where he explicitly asked to make Greg’s email comply with school policy! The principal’s expression was priceless.

The assistant principal left with his tail between his legs, and I had a new email, “roperg,” created for the teacher that afternoon.

Greg was so grateful that he actually took me to lunch, joking that it was the least he could do after the crazy ordeal.

Talk about an unfortunate name! I’m sure his usernames in grade school caused quite a laugh for the other kids!

Reddit was quick to share their own stories of unfortunate naming coincidences!

Or poor Tracey, who was left distraught after seeing the name assigned to her for her company ID.

This user said parents need to be conscious of how the name can be twisted!

And finally, this user shared her Mother’s story of the nicknames given to 3 very unfortunate Beths!

Seymour Butts? I’ve got a call for Seymour Butts!

Sorry.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.