In modern-day Great Britain, Balls, Death, Smellie and Cockshott are declining. Got your attention now?

I mean that people bearing those last names are increasingly deciding to change them. Richard Webber of King's College London is a professor of geography who specializes in the study of surnames, and he says that more and more modern Britons are choosing to change names that make people gasp. I guess that if you can't give your descendants a fortune, than at least you can see to it that no one calls them Smellie or Cockshott.

I know that in at least one of the world's languages, the name Scott Simon must mean something ugly or profane. In the meantime, do you have a name that you'd like to nominate for possible retirement?