Your Urban Dictionary Name Is Your New Star Sign
By Mikelle Leow, 24 Nov 2021
Photo 796564 © Maigi | Dreamstime.com
“You don’t look like a [your name].” Heard that before? If you’re confused, look no further than Urban Dictionary, where someone might have defined your name unsolicited.
Forget mindless personality quizzes or reading up about your zodiac sign, it’s now all about instant gratification. If you’ve been tapping through Instagram Stories of late, you’d have noticed that people have been sharing screenshots of their names with their Urban Dictionary meanings. Sometimes, they resonate, but most of the time, they’re downright ridiculous.
The trend seems to have started from an Instagram sticker created by user @bymayuuu, which poses the question: “Show us [your] name in Urban Dictionary.” Since then, the sticker has been used by over 1.7 million Instagram users.
The feature that supports the sticker, called ‘Add Yours’, allows users to create prompts and post them as stickers onto their Stories, and anyone interested to answer them can do so by replying with a relevant photo. ‘Add Yours’ is a pretty new addition to the Stories function, so there’s some hype being generated for it right now.
According to CNET, the Urban Dictionary fad made its way to Twitter and became the number-one trending topic there on Monday.
Go to Urban Dictionary and see what it says about your name pic.twitter.com/WDMg9lVj7t
— Amateur Watcher ⚒️ (@OhioDavee) November 22, 2021
GO AND SEARCH YOUR NAME IN URBAN DICTIONARY JHSJHJSJHJS
— Fidan | gay in sweater🐸❄️ (@Byrzhyk) November 20, 2021
And also, how close do u think the description is to me? IM CURIOUS🧍 pic.twitter.com/3cTcZhxet6
Unlike the classy definitions put out by baby name books, Urban Dictionary’s are often either smuttier or humblebrag-worthy ego boosts.
For example, the name Sarah means princess in Hebrew, a point that practically all baby name dictionaries wouldn’t neglect to make. Scoot over to Urban Dictionary, however, and you’re told it refers to “a very beautiful person” who is “very into the meme culture” and “one of a kind, a legendary, a dream.”
And if Jeff is your name, you’re simply “a state of being,” according to some other guy named Jeff on the crowdsourced slang dictionary.
These meanings are to be taken with a pinch of salt, of course. Since they’re user contributions, there’s likely a tinge of bias in them—and one too many typos.
Similar to how some feel about the swarm of star sign personality posts online, many are so over with the inundation of Urban Dictionary name meanings.
Me seeing everyone’s “Find your name on Urban Dictionary” results: pic.twitter.com/JQFxf2whYB
— JOHNNY SIBILLY (@JohnnySibilly) November 23, 2021
Honestly nobody’s gonna sit there and read what Urban Dictionary says about your name
— Rebecca🤍 (@becca_frxncesca) November 22, 2021
[via CNET and Mashable, cover photo 796564 © Maigi | Dreamstime.com]