What happened to Steve and Mary?

My second son is in the second grade. He is doing very well and is breezing through a lot of the material. He is doing especially well with his reading. He's a bit sloppy in his spelling because he's always in a rush to get on to the next thing. He tends to spell out words phonetically. Because of this, I've been working extra with him on his spelling words. He came home last week with this list. How is he supposed to learn these words? Are they even words? Why are they on a spelling test?

Here are the words on his spelling list:

Carli
Baley
Breeanna
Kayitlin
Tasia
Sara
Braxton
Natalee
Abi
Jacob
Alix
Ayzia
Haden
Ryan
Ashlynn
Signe
Kyler
Noah
Miceala
Christmas
cookie
reindeer
snowflake
sleigh
candy cane

According to my son, these are the names of his classmates. So, we sit down to practice spelling these 'words'. I have no idea how to even pronounce 'words' like 'Signe' or 'Kayitlin'. Why are these the spelling words for the 2nd grade class? I have a theory... I think that the teacher had such a hard time learning to spell these names that she wanted to make the people that chose these names suffer a little bit too. How is a 7 year old supposed to learn to spell a made-up word like 'Ayzia'. Won't that make him try to spell 'Asia' incorrectly when he has it on a spelling test? I am glad that there are a few useful words in the mix like 'candy cane'. He really likes candy.

It seems like parents want to make their child unique by giving them a unique name. I don't think it really works. Is it really so terrible to name your child 'Tyler' instead of 'Kyler'? I would really prefer to teach him to spell words that will help him in his schooling and career. Will my son need to use words like 'Ari' or 'Alix' when he's writing a report analyzing the stock performance of the semiconductor industry? I know he won't need them if he's flipping burgers at the Burger King.

I think the only career where you will need to know words like these is if you are a teacher. Of course, by the time that he's old enough to be a teacher, the parents will be giving their children radical names like Steve and Mary to set them apart from their schoolmates with more normal names, Zeezrak and Mishmo.