Baby Boom

There's been a lot of talk recently about celebrity babies and their "LOOK AT ME!" names (as if these kids will want for attention even if they were named "John" or "Mary"). In this area I actually side with the celebs. There is something to be said for having a name that not every 20th child has.

See, I was visiting a friend over the weekend whose sister is pregnant and stumped for a boy name. Her last name is "Smith" so our feeling was this: If you have a short and common last name you're better off with a multisyllabic or memorable first name. My feeling (no surprise) is that you want your child's name to look good on a marquee --just in case.

If any of you readers are expecting, adopting, or at all contemplating your future child's name you may know about this sitealready but it is absolutely a must-see. Even if there's no bun currently in any oven. Highly addictive, informative, and utterly fascinating. You can type in any name and you get an instant graph, seeing how the name crescendoes and dies in popularity. It's a great tool. You can make sure you aren't naming your child something that sounds unusual to you but is in fact the hip new name.

Of course I looked up movie star names.

I discovered that "Montgomery" the name of my favorite actor and my cat has never been popular. It's peak was in the 1960s but even then it was at the bottom of the top 1000 names for boys. "Monty" a variation is more popular but it hasn't been in the top 1000 names since the 1970s. So think about it: There's barely anybody between the ages of 1 and 26 running around out there with the name 'Monty'. But it doesn't sound all that unusual as names go right? Gwyneth Paltrow got a lot of crap for naming her son "Moses" but it's actually a far far more common thing to name your child. It's lowest moment of popularity was in the 60s. But it's on the upswing again. It's currently the 514th most popular name for boys. It's not exactly like naming your kid "Apple"

Speaking of Gwyneth you can also see how famous people affect the way we civilians name our children. Infamous hated people kill off a name for good. "Adolph" for example fell off the charts after the 40s --gee, wonder why. But back to Ms. Paltrow. Her name doesn't exist on the chart at all --until she achieves fame. Now it's the 960th most popular name for girls. That's still not common but how do you think it made the top 1000 to begin with? Angelina is another that's swingin upwards in the past few years. You can guess why.


Tags: Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, babies, movies, celebrities