View Message

I think these are probably not even misspellings on the part of the parents, but just misspellings by whoever typed the information into the Social Security Administration's database, and that these six boys probably were in actuality named Brian by their parents.

---

I have seen many instances of spellings like Crhistopher and Joesph over the years and think these are normally just mistakes in typing also.

---

I also have a friend who insists that he knows a woman whose name is spelled Chreyl. Her parents intended to name her Cheryl, but when their copy of the official state birth certificate arrived it was spelled Chreyl and the parents thought they just had to accept that, not realizing that could have asked to have the mistake changed.

---

A similar thing happened with Oprah Winfrey. Her parents intended to name her Orpah but the name was misspelled by the registrar as Oprah and they accepted it. Though it's often stated they "liked" Oprah better, I also bet that back then African-American parents in Mississippi would have been reluctant to tell the White county registrar that he or she had misspelled a name.