A woman has been left scratching her head after encountering someone with a very traditional name that had an entirely unconventional spelling.
Choosing a baby’s name is no small feat and often entails a lot of effort and consideration – some parents stick to time-honoured names, others prefer contemporary twists, many honour relatives, and a few aim for utter uniqueness.
It’s important to remember when choosing a name, it should fit both an adorable infant just as equally as it does an adult carving out their path in life. While some embrace having distinctive or quirky names, for others it can be a source of frustration.
One lady was taken aback upon meeting a girl named Jessica, only to find out the spelling was anything but typical. Taking to Reddit, she posted: “How would you pronounce Diessica?” and tagged her query, “is it a tragedeigh?”
The term “tragedeigh” seeks to mocks the trend where parents take a standard name and alter its spelling in a bid to make it seem different or “unique”, often resulting in illogical spellings that burden children with difficult-to-pronounce names.
The Redditor elaborated: “Apparently the D is silent. It’s pronounced JESSica according to the girl whose name it is I met. Tragedeigh? I think so.”
Fellow Reddit users were eager to share their opinions. One individual commented: “It makes me think of a dessicated dissection.”
Another user responded: “I agree. There is no way it’s Jess-ica”. A third person commented: “Yeah, maybe maybe Yessica (which I have seen), but this monstrosity I would pronounce (die-ess-ee-ka).”
Someone else joked: “If the D is silent it should be eye-sica. She’s as trajic as the mother that burdened her with this tragedeigh.”
The original poster replied: “I first read this as icicle for some reason and I got a good laugh. But you’re right. When she said the D is silent all I could think was ok but where did the J come from”. Another user claimed: “Old English didn’t differentiate between I and J as vowels and consonants, and used them completely interchangeably until the end of the 16th century. So if they were going for a historical naming convention, Jessica could absolutely be spelled Iessica.”
According to Ancestry UK: “The name Jessica has its origins in Hebrew and is derived from the biblical name Iscah. Iscah, meaning to behold or to see, was the niece of Abraham who featured in the Old Testament. Over time, Iscah evolved into the name Jessica, with its modern meaning of God Beholds.”
The name evolved over time and gained popularity across the UK after William Shakespeare used it in his play, The Merchant of Venice.