(Mis)spelling names!

This is kind of a fun article: Complaint Box | Brittney, Brittny, Brittneigh

It's about how a lovely name like Brittany has been mangled by the unwashed masses to the detriment of not only the poor children named Britney/etc., but to all the normal "Brittany"s, anybody else who is not their parents, and to language in general. I agree with the intentions of this article completely, but it would be remiss of me if I didn't say this fella was full of crap. The primary reason comes in his stunning, sweeping conclusion:

"Misspelling a child’s name won’t make Junior special, creative or unique. Y’s and I’s are not interchangeable..."

My complaint here is that Brittany is a corruption of the Latin (Greek originally? probably) Brittania, describing the islands off France, which later came to also describe the little French peninsula opposite/south of England. Maybe if I had a daughter I would name her Bretagne, because if I really felt a connection to the French-conquerors of my generally Anglo-Celto-Nordic identified ancestors (though the mingling of bloodlines here would make this a needless distinction given any serious study I imagine), why wouldn't I keep the French version of the name? At least they just flat-out changed it instead of committing Mr. Paul Schmitdberger's ultimate, highly Anglo sin of "interchanging y's and i's".

But really, stop giving your kids stupid names. Anglicizing words because we have different spelling conventions for consonant i's is one thing, but most of you are just making crap up and it makes you look at stupid as Mr. Schmitberger's inane little rant.