January 15, 2009
And I'm pretty sure they don't mean giving your kid an unpersonalized birthday cake. Still, New Jersey's Youth and Family Services agency is not giving the reasons for removing recently discriminated-against birthday boy Adolf Hitler Campbell and his two slightly...
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Posted by greg at
1:18 PM
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Comments (0)
December 15, 2008
Let the record show that no one puts a kid's full name on a grocery store birthday cake. And you also know that when little Adolf Hitler Campbell's parents' cake order at the ShopRite was refused, there was no...
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Posted by greg at
9:19 PM
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Comments (8)
December 13, 2008
The question is not whether the popularization of dick as slang for penis--and jerk--made the name unpopular for children. And the question is not whether Richard Nixon pushed it completely off the list with his dickish behavior, leaving his...
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Posted by greg at
10:58 PM
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Comments (0)
December 7, 2008
Oh sorry, SPOILER ALERT? Deciding to Have a Baby? Easy. Picking a Name? Not So Easy. [nytimes via dt reader eric]...
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Posted by greg at
9:54 PM
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Comments (1)
November 28, 2008
If you live in one of five certain, dwindling, depressed towns around Potenza in the arch of Italy's boot, some Fascist Party offshoot will pay you 1,500 euros to name your baby after Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele. That's...
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Posted by greg at
12:01 AM
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Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
It's a travel day, so DT Freakout Friday is short, just the bare necessities, you might say: Not only is he messed up for the school year cutoff, but now it turns out that babies born in the fall have...
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Posted by greg at
9:56 AM
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Comments (3)
November 6, 2008
Note to Twitter users whose Obama Baby trend takes nine months to be realized: you will have your meme handed right back to you by the pregnant population of Kenya, where 99.9% of the babies born in that country will...
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Posted by greg at
4:27 PM
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Comments (2)
November 4, 2008
19 year-old George Garratt, of Glastonbury, Somerset, UK, changed his name to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined. The guy, who will go by Captain Fantastic for short, "thinks his new name is...
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Posted by greg at
5:03 PM
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Comments (1)
October 23, 2008
Dang it, I'm gonna miss them when they're gone. From a long interview with People Magazine which included questions submitted by readers like you'n me:People: Alicia also wondered if you had any more unique names up your sleeve. Sarah Palin:...
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Posted by greg at
4:57 PM
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Comments (5)
October 21, 2008
Sure, Sarah Palin's totally unqualified to be president, but to the meatheads at her rallies, she's still a TUTBPILF. The NYT reports on another surefire place to go to avoid hipster baby names [two words: Maverick Maverick]: "Katie Couric...
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Posted by greg at
12:34 PM
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Comments (7)
October 20, 2008
The magazine, book publishing and TV show didn't work out, so ex-New Yorker editor [seems so long ago] Tina Brown launches a website, The Daily Beast, which "sees itself as a must-read for hipsters in news, politics and pop culture."...
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Posted by greg at
10:26 PM
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Comments (6)
October 15, 2008
After his wife thought they'd decided on Ava Grace, Elizabethton, TN resident Mark Ciptak filled out the birth certificate forms at the hospital and "secretly named his baby girl Sarah McCain Palin." Secretly as in, he was talking to the...
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Posted by greg at
10:23 AM
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Comments (3)
September 8, 2008
DT reader Naomi's comment below about the new album from The Jam founder Paul Weller led me to a nice Weller profile in the Times of London last week, which contains this baby naming strategy:[Weller] remembers saving for a year...
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Posted by greg at
9:42 PM
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Comments (2)
August 29, 2008
First off as an Obama man myself, and not knowing anything at all about her before today, I must say Sarah Palin seems like an excellent VP pick for John McCain. Were they to win the election, I would hope...
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Posted by greg at
5:21 PM
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Comments (12)
August 1, 2008
It's Internet-old news, this case in New Zealand family court where a custody dispute for a 9-year-old girl included the judge's order that precludes the parents from naming her Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. [Horse out of the barn,...
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Posted by greg at
2:01 AM
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Comments (9)
July 22, 2008
Kottke says that all the slice&dice data options at NameTrends.net are the new "gold standard for baby name web doohickeys." I still like the elegance of NameVoyager's "starts-with" visualizations better. Even if NameTrends' added sorts, like names with similar popularity...
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Posted by greg at
9:10 AM
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Comments (4)
July 11, 2008
Even though they regularly name kids after when and where they were conceived [Brooklyn, Indiana August], I haven't heard of anyone naming his kid after how they were conceived. There have been Vans and even a Viggo on our playground,...
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Posted by greg at
8:09 AM
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Comments (11)
June 12, 2008
A study in the works at Harvard shows that Brazilian telenovelas have an impact--in Brazil, anyway--on lowering fertility rates and on baby name choices. From the abstract:We focus on fertility choices in Brazil, a country where soap operas (novelas) portray...
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Posted by greg at
11:18 AM
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Comments (2)
June 6, 2008
I know the big issue is really the pre-K admissions trauma, but still this is a useful snapshot of Williamsburg kid names circa 2004. Half the list could be from any yuppie enclave anywhere in the country:Ms. Yourke added: “I...
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Posted by greg at
7:14 AM
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Comments (4)
May 29, 2008
"The chair, created from beaver-gnawed wood, was made by Bruce Gundersen, a filmmaker and furniture designer, to mark the birth of Ms. Puett’s son, Grey Rabbit." Ms Puett is J. Morgan Puett, and her baby daddy is the artist...
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Posted by greg at
7:44 AM
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Comments (1)
March 19, 2008
So I pointed out yesterday that Nickelodeon's executives described "moms" and kids "on mom's lap" as two prime targets for their new $100 million, 600+ games, online marketing push. Which is a little lame, but mostly, it's fine, and not...
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Posted by greg at
11:17 AM
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Comments (0)
March 12, 2008
NYT columnist John Tierney's middle name is Marion, which caused him no end of grief as a child:I had vivid memories of playground serenades to my middle name: “Marion . . . Madam Librarian!” (My tormentors didn’t care that the...
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Posted by greg at
9:25 AM
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Comments (3)
March 7, 2008
XLNT! Next time I want to promote my out-of-my-ass "societal trends, generational studies, and demographic shifts" research by declaring a data-free trend and slapping a totally made up explanation on it, I know where to go: Australia. Or maybe not!...
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Posted by greg at
12:54 PM
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Comments (4)
This has been making the designweb rounds. Apparently, getting shirtless on camera with your uncle the calligrapher is a timeworn tradition in Amsterdam. Bonus monosyllabic Dutch naming bonanza from the credits: Gradus [the kid, admittedly polysyllabic], Job [the uncle]...
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Posted by greg at
12:12 PM
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Comments (0)
March 4, 2008
Kudos to Adobe blogger John Nack, who's celebrating the safe arrival of Finnegan Liggett Nack. Like Photoshop users the world over, the Nacks had Seetharaman Narayanan on their name list, too. Please Welcome Mr. Finnegan Nack [blogs.adobe.com via dt reader...
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Posted by greg at
10:13 AM
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Comments (1)
March 1, 2008
With the news that J. Lo and M. An [doesn't work?] have named their twins Max and Emme, I think it behooves those who already have kids to list up the names of current children's TV show characters, just so...
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Posted by greg at
9:11 AM
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Comments (12)
February 29, 2008
Baby names can come at you in the most unlikely places:Nina Foch married James Lipton, eesh, and also long ago played the woman who found baby Moses in "The Ten Commandments." The kid, Taliesin Jaffe (!!!), went on to be...
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Posted by greg at
9:07 PM
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Comments (3)
February 27, 2008
Look, I've got nothing against the name Brooklyn, not at all. Some of my best friends have named their kids Brooklyn. I'm just saying if you trade the kid's birth certificate for a freakin' Domino's Pizza, you're a gigantic chump:ANN...
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Posted by greg at
1:11 PM
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Comments (8)
February 14, 2008
Haven't been keeping up on what Dweezil Zappa's doing these days, but here's a short clip from a Stockholm gig of his show, Zappa Plays Zappa. At the opening, he introduces his daughter Zola to the crowd. Zola Frank...
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Posted by greg at
9:43 PM
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Comments (0)
February 3, 2008
High five to Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing and Alice Taylor of Wonderland, who have demonstrated that sci-fi nerdery and video game-blogging are not only able to reproduce, they know how to name the bejeebies out of a baby:I am ecstatic...
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Posted by greg at
4:05 PM
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Comments (1)
January 25, 2008
In fact between 1990 and 2007, just two girls in all of Georgia were named Shaquarious. The Atlanta Journal Constitution compiled almost seventeen years of birth records from the Georgia Department of Human Resources into a single, searchable list. There...
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Posted by greg at
8:34 AM
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Comments (20)
January 7, 2008
We're all home and chill now. I had rambling philosophical post almost done about the differences between the first and the second time you have a kid, what you know, what you know you don't know, etc. Then I was...
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Posted by greg at
7:25 AM
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Comments (13)
January 2, 2008
So my brother and his wife just had their baby yesterday [I'd say "mazel tov," but they'd probably have to look it up; they live in Denver, and unless Daniel Libeskind's in town to check on his museum/condo project, I...
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Posted by greg at
11:19 AM
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Comments (8)
Whether an unscientific Babycenter survey result of 10% is surprisingly low or surprisingly high only you can say. Of the three sets of parents mentioned in the article, only two actually went through with it; the third pair just conferred...
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Posted by greg at
9:54 AM
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Comments (5)
January 1, 2008
So the kid didn't come on New Year's Eve, sparing us the whole embarrassment of being exposed on local news as the derelict parents who couldn't figure out the name of The First Baby Of 2008. Figuring it's exactly the...
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Posted by greg at
8:08 AM
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Comments (2)
December 21, 2007
Some things spotted around the web: Even though they're tacky and kind of insipid--well, the World Wildlife Federation was, the one for bigger kids, from National Geographic, is not that bad--the kid absolutely loves getting her magazines. It's mail! For...
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Posted by greg at
1:37 PM
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Comments (0)
December 19, 2007
In fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue not because he was so lazy, because judges in Genoa are freakin' crazy. Five months after a Genovese family named their son Friday, after the day he was born, a...
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Posted by greg at
9:38 AM
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Comments (0)
December 10, 2007
The "If 4 is the new 3, can 5 be the new 4?" baby naming discussion reminded me of a character in Peanuts, 5. I always thought it was just 5, according to his Wikipedia page, his full name is...
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Posted by greg at
7:17 AM
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Comments (6)
December 8, 2007
Not only are we still undecided on the other kid's name, our short list is twice as long as it was at this stage the first time around. It's got some great names on it [1], but I wonder if...
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Posted by greg at
10:04 AM
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Comments (24)
November 13, 2007
Somehow I lost track of Korn, not that I followed them or anything, just what Kurt Loder told me. But offhandedly riffing on Mr. Rogers lyrics in that scary toilet post reminded me of Jonathan Davis's own issues with Rogers...
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Posted by greg at
8:57 AM
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Comments (2)
November 6, 2007
Just the other day, the NY Times reviewed an insanely awesome-sounding book by Graham Robb, The Discovery of France, that basically shows how historically, France is not the enchanting-yet-annoying cultural monolith we all love [and American politicians love to hate];...
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Posted by greg at
1:38 PM
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Comments (6)
November 1, 2007
the Chloe Beata At this very minute, in a cultural arena you never paid attention to, a name you like--perhaps it's even a family name on your shortlist--may be getting kicked around and weighted down with who-knows-what kinds of...
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Posted by greg at
9:15 AM
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Comments (3)
October 28, 2007
The DT browser tab clearance is on now: NYT Magazine: Looking for Their Children’s Birth Mothers Maggie Jones takes a personal look at the complicated emotional and cultural landscape of open international adoption. Though she and her husband decided to...
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Posted by greg at
6:06 PM
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Comments (0)
October 24, 2007
Yeah, like 30 years ago. That's when Big Bird gets a lesson in breastfeeding from the folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and her infant son Cody. Of course, Big Bird also has a personality, and Buffy carefully anunciates, "ve-ge-tuh-bles," so...
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Posted by greg at
11:35 PM
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Comments (5)
October 18, 2007
So my wife tells me that while I was gone, she and the kid sat down to read the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue together. Now the kid wants bump beds. [ducduc, Argington, and Nurseryworks, we'll be in touch in 2010...
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Posted by greg at
9:27 AM
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Comments (6)
October 10, 2007
I don't get this kid naming joke from the web comic Xkcd at all, but I showed it to some of the guys in IT, and they cracked up. Good enough for me. Also, Cory at boingboing linked to...
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Posted by greg at
8:11 AM
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Comments (8)
October 1, 2007
Part of me feels like I've gotta clear these browser tabs, but part of me feels everyone can read the NY Times on his own: Slow-mo Infant Cold Medicine Ban Rolls On--Slowly: Instigated by pediatrician activists in February and finally...
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Posted by greg at
10:22 PM
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Comments (3)
September 28, 2007
And the answer to Andy's question is yes, I will gladly link to a shamelessly self-promotional photo from his recent trip to the woods. Also, Shehaqua just made our naming shortlist. [update: it's off. someone just told me Shehaqua...
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Posted by greg at
11:46 AM
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Comments (2)
September 13, 2007
Every time I start to wonder why my mom stayed with my father when they were so ferociously ill-matched, I look at the photo at the top of this post, of her own dad embracing her as a baby. He...
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Posted by greg at
9:21 AM
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Comments (2)
September 6, 2007
Gee, was it really only January when the NY Times wrote about Venezuela's crazy foreign-inspired naming tradition as a sign of populist empowerment after centuries of classist oppression by the ruling elites? And now for no apparent, compelling reason, the...
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Posted by greg at
7:26 AM
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Comments (3)
September 4, 2007
For families who are spread out across the globe, why NOT use YouTube to share the video of you waiting to hear about your kid's birth [down the hall, around the corner, in the shoe-free zone of the Japanese hospital]?...
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Posted by greg at
4:29 PM
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Comments (1)
September 3, 2007
So we're obviously trying to tune back into the baby naming vibrations blanketing the earth, which emanate from the Harmonic Convergence in Sedona, AZ. Or from the Cosmic Umbilicus Daycare Center in the shopping center behind the Olive Garden, which...
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Posted by greg at
7:45 AM
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Comments (8)
August 23, 2007
90-year-old Rajasthani farmer Nanu Ram Jogi and his wife Saburi, 50, are celebrating the birth of their new daughter, Girija Rajkumari. Girija is Nanu's 21st child. Saburi is his fourth wife. She had originally been married to Nanu's Number One...
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Posted by greg at
8:58 AM
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Comments (0)
August 19, 2007
Isis, Omne, Magus, Electra, Orbit, Electricity, Djin, Sunflower, Damian, Lotus, Goddess, Octavius, Pythias, Rhythm, Sol Amon, Aquariana, Zoraster, Ahom, Omega, "cannot remember his name." Those are some of the first names I rounded up of members of The Source Family,...
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Posted by greg at
9:26 PM
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Comments (1)
August 17, 2007
A couple in China wanted to name their son '@'. Considering that almost everyone in China's got symbols in his name, it's not as big a deal as it might first seem. @ is pronounced 'ai ta' in Mandarin, which...
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Posted by greg at
7:24 AM
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Comments (1)
August 10, 2007
So the New Zealand government naming registrar has rejected the appeal parents who wanted to name their kid 4Real, saying you can't start a name with a number. [The family's not entirely crazy argument: what's the big deal? People are...
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Posted by greg at
9:31 AM
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Comments (2)
July 31, 2007
Oil industry-and-art-world scion-turned-graffiti artist Dash Snow has always done his best work with semen. As he explained last January in a New York Magazine cover story titled, "Warhol's Children" [he's the tattooed one on the right]:“I’ve always been a big...
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Posted by greg at
11:34 AM
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Comments (1)
July 27, 2007
Dateline: Fort Bragg, North Carolina - After a single, anonymous complaint, a mother of three who has breast-fed all her kids in the food court of an Army-owned minimall where she's worked for seven years, was told to stop...
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Posted by greg at
1:10 PM
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Comments (9)
July 25, 2007
I guess for some people in the world's more creative cultures, unpronounced accents on names are like Nutella on crepes: there's no such thing as too much. For example, British pop singer Peter Andre thought his first daughter with his...
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Posted by greg at
4:05 PM
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Comments (2)
July 19, 2007
The visionaries at Pandiscio have graciously provided a color version of Bela Borsodi's portrait of Cuddle Me Condos, and I think we can all agree that One Kenmare has never looked moodier, Urban Glass House has never looked whippier, 40...
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Posted by greg at
12:54 PM
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Comments (8)
July 16, 2007
The NY Sun is a few years late discovering the popularity of WNYC radio announcer Soterios Johnson among the McSweeney's-and-Flickr-loving crowd. So far, there's a Jonathan Coulter song [old], a band [new], and more than a few pets named after...
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Posted by greg at
1:16 PM
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Comments (0)
July 9, 2007
If you're on the fence about the name Oliver, maybe this will help settle things: there's a vintage Oliver Tractors sign for sale on eBay that's made of 3-D stainless steel letters, each 18" high. Un. Be. Lievable. As...
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Posted by greg at
11:10 PM
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Comments (4)
Gawker's running a poll of sorts: Pick The Most Pretentious Baby Name Consultant Contest 2007. Voting starts tomorrow, but there's one more chance to add names. The runners up that didn't make it to voting:Luxman, Dodger, Amaranth, Arcadia, Clooney, Trench,...
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Posted by greg at
8:03 PM
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Comments (0)
July 3, 2007
Hello, adorable little one-year-old photographed wearing a Wookie costume at the Disney-MGM Star Wars Weekend, what's your name? Oh. And what would you like to be when you grow up? And how does having your older brother dressed as...
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Posted by greg at
12:15 AM
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Comments (1)
June 29, 2007
Congratulations to Ugly Dolls creators David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim on the delivery, safe and sound, of little UMA. Horvath writes on his blog that UMA only became a reality for them when they saw that first sonogram, a feeling...
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Posted by greg at
10:48 PM
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Comments (4)
June 26, 2007
From the Wall Street Journal: What's in a name? Stress. Sociologists and name researchers say they are seeing unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children. One Las Vegas couple felt "enormous pressure," pressure to...
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Posted by greg at
5:50 PM
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Comments (8)
Focusing on the little ultrasound rather than the big picture, a couple in New Zealand is negotiating with the official agency that registers births over their desire to name their son 4Real. Sorry, 4real. [ap video/yahoo] Maria Brown of...
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Posted by greg at
2:10 PM
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Comments (2)
June 25, 2007
When all spelling variations are taken into account, the second most popular boy's name in the UK in 2006 was Muhammad. A mufti in a British mosque explains the name's global Islamic popularity as the equivalent of Jason for 30-somethings...
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Posted by greg at
4:15 PM
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Comments (2)
June 4, 2007
It's nice when a plan comes together. Paul & Pam Costa of Silicon Valley somewhere were having a boy and thought they'd name him Edison, so they cooked up an Edison theme for his nursery. Though some even bigger...
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Posted by greg at
3:32 PM
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Comments (1)
YOW. A cracked up mom, with a 7-yo kid in the back, plowed a Volvo 740 station wagon through a giant Washington DC street fair Saturday night, injuring up to 40 people, including at least seven kids. The rampage...
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Posted by greg at
10:33 AM
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Comments (1)
June 2, 2007
As I'm sure you already know from previous seasons in Aspen and the Hamptons, Plum TV is like the free, glossy real estate ad magazines they leave in Upper East Side lobbies, like Avenue or Quest, but on TV....
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Posted by greg at
8:51 AM
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Comments (1)
May 12, 2007
This Wall Street Journal article about naming your kid so she rises to the top of her vanity search results is quaint, and even though the strategy strikes me now as a bit limited, that doesn't mean we didn't do...
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Posted by greg at
10:44 PM
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Comments (3)
April 9, 2007
Cool Hunting just posted a video visit to the studio of Salvor designer Ross Menuez. Turns out the company's named after his daughter and muse [well, her middle name, anyway. It's Icelandic.] When it came out a couple of...
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Posted by greg at
5:06 PM
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Comments (1)
April 6, 2007
You know I love me some Sweden around here, but I guess I'm too damn 'Murican to understand what business it is of the National Tax Board what I choose to name my kid. Those countries all over Scandinavia--and...
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Posted by greg at
1:34 AM
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Comments (0)
March 27, 2007
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minneapolis police say that Detrick D. Jiles [24] told officers that the boy [2], whose name police did not release, had taken the gun from his mother's purse and fired it at Jiles... [Police...
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Posted by greg at
7:59 AM
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Comments (0)
March 20, 2007
What an "NPR-nik" told the Boston Globe about Zack, a new news show they're hoping will reach a younger, 25-44 year-old, audience: "We thought Zack is exactly the kind of name NPR staffers would give their male children." Public Radio...
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Posted by greg at
9:16 AM
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Comments (4)
March 14, 2007
Before delivering the main course, a 3-columned table for constructing a baby name "fit for tracking by the police or private collection agencies," TMN's Non-Expert Claire Miccio offers some baby naming appetizers. Here are some categories she suggests exploring: American...
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Posted by greg at
9:05 AM
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Comments (2)
March 6, 2007
An adult named Mahkyle? He must have been the first guy around with that spelling. He's also a real estate broker for people who won't spend $20,000/month on a rental unless it has a fireplace that can "impress even a...
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Posted by greg at
10:12 PM
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Comments (0)
February 28, 2007
For some reason, an excited article about new technology for abandoning babies pops up in the major news media every 13-15 months. It's like clockwork. If only birth control or social services protections for the young illegal immigrants from Eastern...
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Posted by greg at
9:52 AM
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Comments (0)
February 19, 2007
I know the mob has spoken, but I, for one, kind of miss the DT Namewatch feature. I might have to talk to someone about that... Anyway, names that rhyme: Jack Black's nothing. I just came across a great white...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:38 PM
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Comments (4)
February 6, 2007
So says Steve Callendar, Vice President of Resorts Casino in Atlantic City, while on his way to double down on his company's Bus&Breakfast! Nursing Home promotional budget. Seems a penny slots customer, one Nyree Thompson, gave birth in the casino...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:18 PM
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Comments (2)
January 24, 2007
New Yorkers are giving their babies foreign, literary, or "'unusual'" names like never before, reports Daisy Carrington [umm...] in the NY Observer. But watch out, even seemingly simple, two-syllable names can be hard for kids to pronounce, causing lifelong self-esteem...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:40 AM
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Comments (1)
January 20, 2007
This may be slicing it a bit thin, newsworthiness-wise, but, after a generation of Anglo names like Kevin and Justin, an ethnic name--Angel--has become the most popular name for Hispanic boys in NYC. Still, a hundred more people/month naming their...
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Posted by greg at
6:11 PM
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Comments (0)
January 9, 2007
LeBron: not yet Kobe: yeah, pretty much Shaquille: maybe Jordan: sure, but how can you tell? At True Hoop, sportswriter Harry Abbott poked around the Social Security Administration's name database, trying to find any discernable trends of people naming their...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:22 AM
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Comments (3)
January 7, 2007
Nixon Moreno, Stalin Gonzalez, Taj-Mahal Sanchez, Elvis Presley Gomez Morillo, Darwin Lenin Jimenez, Hitler Eufemio Mayora. Apparently during the oil boom of the 1970's, Venezuelan parents discovered the fun of defying the traditional, class-defining, naming system, and began giving their...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:54 PM
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Comments (1)
January 2, 2007
Any names still ringing in your new ear? Send them in: names [at] daddytypes [dot] com "Is this Terrence or Kerrence?" [guy behind us on cell phone this afternoon last week] Morton, composers like Feldman and Lauridsen [via my John...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:56 AM
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Comments (0)
December 31, 2006
But then, I guess that's the working definition for a List of Most Popular Names. Clear trends: The old-fashioned girly thing [Hannah, Isabella, Emma, Olivia, Abigail, Ava, et al.] The Ethan/Ryan/Joshua/Jack are the new Michael/John/Matthew/Robert thing, and The awesome power...
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Posted by greg at
2:14 PM
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Comments (2)
December 27, 2006
Zeke & Zoey Zodrow, twin Santa-fearers [via southflorida.com]...
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Posted by greg at
7:41 AM
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December 26, 2006
Posting via cel today: wellington koo, foreıgn minister of china, 1906. arsulina, integrated bus-pioneering maid, 1956 [both via iht.com] foulque, local prince bruno, local politician werther, goethe character tips? names [at] daddytypes [dot] com...
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Posted by greg at
11:58 AM
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Comments (0)
December 21, 2006
Lichai and Ila, well-dressed brother and sister [via babble] Alastair Roderic Craigellachie Dalhousie Gowan Donnybristle MacMac, aka Wee Gillis. I think MacMac's my favorite. [via nybr] Widuran Bertram, source of the quote in the title [via bbc] Remo, Italian...
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Posted by greg at
1:18 AM
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Comments (1)
December 20, 2006
British folk are apparently all naming their kids after their grandparents now, says the BBC's Keely Paice, with lots of 1906-era names like Henry and Max and Ruby and Alfie. Alfie? That's a character on the Eastenders, so they're actually...
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Posted by greg at
2:15 PM
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Comments (0)
December 19, 2006
I had this edition of the Namewatch ready to go, then I ran into a friend an engaged her in conversation. Plus, I had to wrap some Christmas presents. Do you think that's wrong? names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Gardenia,...
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Posted by greg at
8:40 AM
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Comments (0)
December 15, 2006
Oddly, I didn't hear many first names during the JP-HK trip. Here's hoping you've been listening for interesting, unusual, cool, or awesome names. Send them in to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Alasdhair, alternate spelling of Alastair, also Stella McCartney's...
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Posted by greg at
9:54 AM
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Comments (1)
November 30, 2006
Send along the names that stick in your wicket wherever you are, whether it's Port Charles or Pakistan: names [at] daddytypes [dot] com Zarf, some soap opera, because Mork was taken Bex, Jewish performer [via gawker] Thijs, "pronounced thice. [Lauer]...
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Posted by greg at
3:22 PM
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Comments (2)
November 29, 2006
I had a great-great aunt or something who, it was revealed at her rural Utah funeral, named her firstborn son after her long-lost love, who was also her first cousin. If only she had been in the motion picture business,...
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Posted by greg at
1:15 PM
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Comments (2)
Have you heard a name that went in one ear and stayed? Send it in to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Grisha, short for Gregor, Gregor von Rezzori [via nymag] Gray Rabbitt, family names, apparently [via artnet] Anouk, model then,...
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Posted by greg at
10:33 AM
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Comments (0)
November 22, 2006
Are there any names you're thankful for hearing lately? Send them in to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Taavo, archer, haberdasher, barkeep [via observer] Tuuli, a model or something, slightly nsfw [via theapt] McCabe, Warren Beatty Constance, Julie Christie in...
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Posted by greg at
9:19 PM
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Comments (0)
November 20, 2006
Any names you've heard lately make you want to shout, "hosanna"? Proclaim them here, at names [at] daddytypes [dot] com. Colt [via Wikipedia Brown and The Case of The Captured Koala] A C, grandfather, "first name 'A', middle name 'C'....
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Posted by greg at
8:47 PM
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Comments (1)
November 17, 2006
Any interesting names refuse to hide under a blanket for you lately? Send them to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com. Nabila, mom, saved kids below from a fire by throwing them [plus two more] out the window into the neighbors'...
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Posted by greg at
11:56 PM
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Comments (0)
OK, call me dim and uninformed, even though I'm writing a freakin' book on celebrity parenting. But I did not know Michael Jackson actually calls that kid "Blanket." I thought it was just a tabloid nickname. Of course, Blanket...
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Posted by greg at
12:12 AM
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Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Tord, which may, unfortunately, rhyme with word. Dutch designer taking over Target at the moment [toordboontje.com] Jaime Hayon "(pronounced 'Hi-me Hi-on')", Spanish designer discovered while searching for how to pronounce Tord [via guardian] Mare "(pronounced Mah-Ray which is Italian...
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Posted by greg at
11:38 PM
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Comments (0)
November 14, 2006
If you come across any names that make bonus season especially pleasant, send them in to: names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Ranaan, Goldman Sachs partner, drives Honda Odyssey [!] Gustave, legendary senior partner, Goldman Sachs. Middle name of said partner's...
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Posted by greg at
11:20 PM
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Comments (0)
November 12, 2006
Agyness Jaunel Trace, some models [via style.com] Kai-Uwe [ex-CEO of the other DT, Deutsche Telekom. Not related: kayui means "itchy" in Japanese. [via nyt] Jobe, who unfortunately lives up to his name [via nyt] Sam Penny Oscar [what, no...
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Posted by greg at
1:48 PM
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Comments (0)
November 9, 2006
Anemona [via nyt] Kaligraphy Hogan [both via jen, who reads the birth announcements] Gracie Callie Telly Wavey Dulcie Ruthie [Julianne Moore character names]...
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Posted by greg at
8:34 AM
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Comments (0)
November 6, 2006
Have you heard a name that stuck with you for some reason? Throw it against the DT wall and see if it sticks here, too: names [at] daddytypes [dot] com James Leroy Augustin Jagger Georgia May Ayeesha Jagger Gabriel Luke...
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Posted by greg at
10:30 PM
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Comments (0)
November 2, 2006
"Funny you should ask, Honey. We named you after a woman in Canada who gave her baby away without telling the daddy" may not sit too well with the kid, but you have to admit, the name caught your attention....
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Posted by greg at
11:55 PM
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Comments (0)
October 31, 2006
So I was thinking that Mr. Howell's name didn't sound right, so I started Googling around a bit. I was right, after I was wrong, that is: it wasn't P. Was it J.? Thurston J. Howell III.? Or just Thurston...
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Posted by greg at
7:01 PM
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Sigfried Eli Ludwig Gustav Tobias Thea Heinz Yvon for a guy Here's a batch from Elizabeth, who works in a hospital. I worried a bit about posting them all at once, because if you threw this list at Google, I...
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Posted by greg at
5:07 PM
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Comments (6)
October 23, 2006
Here are some interesting names that have leaped across the theater of my mind. You hear of any name prodigies out there, you send them to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com, aight?: Saxon Marie [via chris] Niklas [via david] Nico...
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Posted by greg at
8:57 PM
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Comments (0)
October 19, 2006
Did you hear the names of the future today? Send them to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Ayn [sent me a press release from familyfun.com] Navy & Island Shuler [son and daughter of ex-Redskin Heath, SI via daddyzine] Berit, Urban...
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Posted by greg at
8:10 PM
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Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Hear any interesting and/or underground names recently? Send them all--except ESPN [pronounced Espen, ps: sorry, Kaz], that's just not credible--to names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: J.J. Clay Redick [via deadspin: "as a toddler because his twin sisters each repeated his...
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Posted by greg at
6:44 PM
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Comments (2)
October 17, 2006
Hear any great or interesting names while you were lingering around the daycare dropoff? Send'em in and start a trend: names [at] daddytypes [dot] com Treazure ["with a 'Z', from my daughter's preschool," via stephen] Cirdan [another preschool classmate, "pronounced...
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Posted by greg at
7:52 PM
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Comments (4)
October 15, 2006
Keene [via annette] Razi [via david] Yana [via ana & sergei] Constance Arden ["but we call her Coco," via shana] Oak (boy) Antonella (girl) Kirin (boy) Ellis (girl) Nana (girl) Zidan (boy) [all via jennifer] Dorian Zev ["it means...
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Posted by greg at
10:32 PM
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Comments (3)
October 13, 2006
Come across a name that stuck with you? You could hoard it for yourself. OR you could share it and maybe start an international naming trend: email names [at] daddytypes [dot] com: Arias [via dt reader Dianne: "we call him...
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Posted by greg at
6:18 PM
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Comments (2)
October 12, 2006
Wow, Namewatch. It's like how, when you learn a new word, you start hearing it everywhere: Aljosha Kinski [boy], Sonja Moussa, Kenia [girls] [imdb bio] Marcus Philimon, Demetrius Anthony, Lumay [from Lumei] Jayon [from Jiyang], and on and on and...
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Posted by greg at
1:42 PM
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Comments (2)
October 11, 2006
I hear and read unusual and interesting names all the time that make me go "hmm." And even if they don't get added to the shortlist on our mental fridge, maybe they'll spark someone else's naming imagination. So it is...
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Posted by greg at
8:18 PM
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Comments (2)
September 26, 2006
You Jasons out there won't understand--heck, we Gregs don't grasp the concept, either--but there is a school of baby naming thought that says the totality of your child's identity, self-esteem, confidence, positive outlook on the world--basically, her entire future--depends...
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Posted by greg at
4:00 PM
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Comments (2)
I felt bad that I wasn't coming across many things to post for the 'gay dads' category lately, but now I realize it was because I wasn't surfing Gaydar, the British gay personals site. The Daily Mail was, though,...
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Posted by greg at
11:20 AM
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Comments (4)
September 24, 2006
If I'm non-plussed by the sighting of Jesus in a Studley, Warwickshire couple's ultrasound image, it's partly because Jesus is one of the most popular Spanish boy's names out there, so technically, ultrasounds with a Jesus in them happen...
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Posted by greg at
4:49 PM
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Comments (6)
September 22, 2006
I know it's only for stylish moms, but issocuuute! From Cookie's My First Blog (i.e., a blog by a toddler): "I signed all my toys and books with my name Sophie so no one takes them."...
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Posted by greg at
10:00 AM
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Comments (3)
September 21, 2006
Just came across this quote from artist Jason Rhoades. It didn't register with me at all when I first read it two years ago, but since he passed away--survived by his wife and 3-yo daughter--it just really struck me....
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Posted by greg at
11:38 PM
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Comments (1)
September 9, 2006
Actually, an artist couple in Philadelphia have a daughter named Atari. [artforum, bottom photo caption]...
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Posted by greg at
3:02 PM
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Comments (3)
September 4, 2006
TV personality and wild animal wrangler Steve Irwin, shown here in 2004 dangling his plump, 1-month-old, chicken-sized son during a Crocodile feeding show at his animal park, has died while diving on camera, off the coast of Australia. He...
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Posted by greg at
11:37 AM
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Comments (9)
September 3, 2006
The New Age Baby Name Book was published in 1974. It was [one of?] the first name books to include non-traditional, non-Anglo, non-Western European names. Which were handily called "Ethnic Names." Before the list started, though, there was a brief...
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Posted by greg at
2:41 PM
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Comments (3)
August 15, 2006
21-year-old Kenyetta Biggs didn't tell her family she was pregnant, then she gets in a wreck on the way to the hospital and ends up giving birth in her car, which is partly submerged in a canal. And yet she...
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Posted by greg at
11:24 AM
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Comments (1)
August 1, 2006
Malaysia's no melting pot, it's a spice rack. And names are inextricably tied with religious and ethnic identity. So when the National Registration Department wanted to compile a list of "undesirable" baby names, it turned to Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, and...
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Posted by greg at
9:11 PM
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Comments (2)
July 11, 2006
When his wife rejected his suggestion of Xena Warrior Princess, Aaron Brown, a contributor to the Mormon groupblog By Common Consent, asked the congregation for some naming suggestions for his soon-to-be-born daughter. His specifics: no "pretentious euro-names," "no Book of...
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Posted by greg at
9:39 AM
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Comments (2)
June 24, 2006
Now I'm as big a Kevin Smith fan as the next guy. Bigger, even. In the euphoric early days of fatherhood and dadblogging, I called him a "Daddy Types Posterdad." But that was before I actually saw Jersey Girl,...
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Posted by greg at
11:35 AM
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Comments (4)
May 31, 2006
When the latest Social Security Administration numbers for the top 1000 baby names came out a couple of weeks ago, dt reader Matt suggested looking at state-by-state lists of popular names, too. As he pointed out, Ava may have bumped...
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Posted by greg at
5:54 PM
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Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
I guess Strawberry Saroyan was busy. The NY Times' other resident expert on naming oddities, Jennifer 8. Lee, took a front page [?!] look at the miraculous ascendance of Nevaeh into the firmament of the Social Security Administration's top 100...
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Posted by greg at
3:27 PM
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Comments (6)
May 16, 2006
The Social Security Administration's most popular baby names of 2005 ranking are out, and while the Bible-happy boys' list seems the same as it ever was [same as they ever was, same as it ever was, same as it--oh, sorry....
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Posted by greg at
3:33 PM
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Comments (12)
May 11, 2006
Sunny Bebop Balzary. Who knew? Sure are cute, though. Again, who knew? [via celebrity baby blog] Related: Flea used to own this multi-colored Mercedes [hooptyrides]...
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Posted by greg at
1:08 PM
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Comments (0)
May 1, 2006
Kobe Bryant sank the winning shot for the Lakers Sunday, then his wife gave birth to their second daughter Monday. [Which means he's going to miss game 5 of the playoffs Tuesday in Phoenix. Apparently, the only jobs that involve...
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Posted by greg at
11:31 PM
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April 16, 2006
Who'd have thought that A Knight's Tale would be the touchstone for understanding this generation of parents. The New York Times reveals that both the film's lead actors had kids, AND they both gave them weird names! And thus, in...
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Posted by greg at
7:10 AM
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Comments (3)
April 11, 2006
Well, let's see, there's... Jenny [Tommy Tutone] China [Wang Chung] Eileen [Dexy's Midnight Runners] Jude [The Beatles] Rose [Seal] Frances [Nirvana] Polly [also Nirvana] Apple [Blink 182] Sue [Johnny Cash] Paul Revere [Beastie Boys] Nasty [also Beastie Boys] Ricky [Toni...
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Posted by greg at
3:29 PM
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Comments (34)
April 10, 2006
Congratulations to the Chris Martins, who had their baby boy over the weekend in New York. On the strict advice of their nanny "not mak[e] him the kingpin" of the house--and just in time for Passover--they've named him Moses. Well,...
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Posted by greg at
2:41 PM
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Comments (3)
Last week, Blogging Baby reported on a remarkable bit of data analysis on Urban Baby, which broke down the citywide Health Department data to reveal the most popular names by neighborhood. Wow, how'd they do that, I wondered? I couldn't...
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Posted by greg at
12:48 PM
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Comments (2)
March 6, 2006
Do you remember in The Player when studio honcho Griffin (Tim Robbins) takes the Icelandic girlfriend (Greta Scacchi) of the screenwriter he killed to a museum party? The Hollywood people don't know her, and someone goes "Whose daughter did he...
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Posted by greg at
8:44 AM
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Comments (5)
February 27, 2006
l-r: Remi, Kian, Remee, and Kylie. In a story that has rocked the British tabloidscape, a teen dad has named one of his twin daughters after himself. Oh, and in other news, the kid's white. The two bi-racial parents...
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Posted by greg at
10:24 AM
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Comments (3)
January 28, 2006
Weather [the kid's taken to anthropomorphizing weather lately, especially if I blame him (i.e., "Weather") for why we can't go to the playground: "Weather's outside." "Hold Weather's hand, make Weather feel better." Of course, there is weatherman Storm Field (named...
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Posted by greg at
8:54 AM
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Comments (6)
January 23, 2006
So on the Golden Globe awards, George Clooney says of Jack Abramoff, "Who would name their kid Jack with the last words 'off' at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up." And so Jack...
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Posted by greg at
12:12 PM
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Comments (8)
January 22, 2006
The folks at Metafilter have discovered the Utah Baby Namer, which was like the second website I ever visited. It puts even this list of NFL athlete* names to shame: D'Brickashaw Ferguson Laveranues Coles God Shammgod (funny from beginning to...
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Posted by greg at
10:56 PM
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Comments (9)
January 17, 2006
I don't know where the line is when it comes to naming a baby after a tv character, but my gut tells me that "Labia Majora" is waayy on the other side of it. That's a/the baby's name on The...
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Posted by greg at
1:55 PM
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Comments (6)
January 7, 2006
2.3 hours. That's about how long most people were willing to put up with Neo's identity crisis. As soon as they figured out the second Matrix sucked, they lost patience. Not that growing up behind the Iron Curtain made...
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Posted by greg at
10:37 PM
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Comments (1)
January 4, 2006
Because otherwise you would've gone on believing that Chris Martin was thinking of naming their next kid CapOne, after the sponsor of the Citrus Bowl, not Capone, after...well, I don't know where he came up with the name, but it...
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Posted by greg at
4:06 PM
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Comments (0)
November 15, 2005
There's a girl at our playground named She-Ra. Not sure how it's spelled, but that's definitely how it sounds. I don't know what else to say about this. She-Ra, Princess of Power [he-man.org, way too many live people in google...
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Posted by greg at
10:54 PM
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Comments (9)
November 7, 2005
So a reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes in: since i've started the playgroup circuit, i've noticed that many moms have named their kids similarly. it's almost like, "this is the name i wish i had so i gave...
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Posted by greg at
10:38 AM
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Comments (9)
October 30, 2005
Seems that Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams had their baby Friday evening in NYC, so congratulations all around. They named the kid Matilda Rose Ledger, which has Australian fans all excited because apparently "Waltzing Matilda" is "the unofficial song of...
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Posted by greg at
1:09 PM
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Comments (4)
October 24, 2005
And wife Vendela Vida on the birth of their daughter October Adelaide* Eggers Vida. Anyone else out there transpose and give the kid his wife's last name? Anyone else out there name the kid after the month in which she...
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Posted by greg at
6:12 PM
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Comments (12)
October 19, 2005
Actually, Google is his middle name. He's Lebanese/Swedish, and his dad--a PhD candidate in search engine marketing research--started a blog for him. On Blogspot, of course. GoogleKai.blogspot.com [via bloggingbaby] Previously: Google Onesie [sic], Google-proof your baby...
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Posted by greg at
1:41 PM
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Comments (3)
October 12, 2005
I thought they were all in NYC and San Francisco. At least that's where the two J-families WE know live. But congratulations to Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar down near Little Rock, who just had their 16th kid, a girl,...
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Posted by greg at
9:18 PM
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Comments (12)
October 7, 2005
Not satisfied with controlling the TV and reprogramming the minds of today's youth, Jon Stewart is apparently plotting to fill the earth with people even shorter than himself. The unusually tall David Letterman, of all people, tricked Stewart into admitting...
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Posted by greg at
12:11 AM
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Comments (2)
October 3, 2005
Did you know: - that before nearly ruining the filming of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando played Superman's father, Jor-El? - that Nicolas Cage's given name is Coppola? Nephew. - that Cage was once slated to play Superman...
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Posted by greg at
4:36 PM
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Comments (4)
September 26, 2005
In the whirlwind logistics of getting out of the house in the morning, disaster strikes: Duckies, Bobo, and Pillow don't make the trip. But is it Jason's fault? [hint: if you find yourself quoting George Bush in your explanation...
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Posted by greg at
7:54 AM
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Comments (4)
September 17, 2005
New York City has released a report of the most popular names given to the 124,099 babies born in the city in 2004. There's a top ten names for boys and girls overall, and the city compiled top ten lists...
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Posted by greg at
5:12 PM
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Comments (1)
September 11, 2005
Some couple somewhere named their kid Lucifer. Even if you're the Biggest Stones Fan, Ever, this still seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to do in these theocratic times. Unless, of course the kid is destined to lead the forces...
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Posted by greg at
2:05 PM
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Comments (1)
August 26, 2005
If you're a Jason of a certain age, and you had so many Jasons in your class every year growing up, you had to be Jason G, or Jason K, you'd probably develop both a healthy ambition and an appreciation...
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Posted by greg at
10:00 AM
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Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
According to the Wikipedia entry, which obviously pulled from some authoritative source--because, let's face it, after a while, you just can't keep making this stuff up--there are 873 people in the line of succession to the throne of England, including...
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Posted by greg at
11:22 PM
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Comments (4)
August 16, 2005
Sometimes, you just can't add anything to make a post funnier or a story more utterly ridiculous. "Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the U.S. because their names are the same as or similar to those...
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Posted by greg at
8:26 AM
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Comments (0)
July 14, 2005
Is it the Upper West Side? The organized Jewish dating scene? The kids these days? Whatever it is, I don't think I ever steered the conversation towards baby names on the first date, much less before. Still, it's at least...
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Posted by greg at
1:40 PM
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Comments (0)
July 10, 2005
I wanted to let you know that Celebrity Babies says that the NY Post says that In Touch magazine says that someone overheard Ben Affleck telling someone what he'd told his mother: "My mom wants to know what we're going...
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Posted by greg at
9:56 PM
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Comments (0)
June 17, 2005
In the Pottery Barn Kids catalog baby name comments, Kaz wondered about people naming their kids after IKEA furniture. That reminded me of an article I saw last year about how IKEA comes up with their product names. Whether you...
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Posted by greg at
9:13 PM
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Comments (1)
June 13, 2005
I know people who've outfitted their entire nurseries in one fell swoop at Pottery Barn Kids. My sister-in-law, meanwhile, was just noticing the kids names used in monograms in the Summer 2005 PBK catalog that she was flipping through, and...
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Posted by greg at
6:20 PM
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Comments (18)
June 4, 2005
Moxie, what do you think of Moxie? And what about the middle name? If there are any readers named Crimefighter, feel free to chime in. [update: make that CrimeFighter. My bad. "Teller had no comment on the new arrival." heh]...
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Posted by greg at
10:45 PM
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Comments (3)
June 3, 2005
Who knew? Archinect is one of the leading sites for architecture news, schools, resources, interviews, critical blah blah blah, you name it. So when they're not bitching about the low salaries, long hours, spotlight-hogging starchitect bosses and Daniel Libeskind's glasses,...
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Posted by greg at
9:46 PM
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Comments (1)
May 21, 2005
The Social Security Administration recently released its 2004 baby name data, and Brooklyn is the 8th most popular girl's name of the year--in Utah. It's the 101st most popular girl's name in the country. As with some other aspects of...
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Posted by greg at
1:33 PM
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Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
Now, I'm no expert, so I don't know if just naming your kid after your favorite D&D character is the highest honor, or the skeeviest error, like naming her after your psycho ex-girlfriend (and not telling your wife that's where...
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Posted by greg at
10:31 PM
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Comments (5)
April 14, 2005
The English bookmakers William Hill are taking bets on the name of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's baby. Here are some of the current odds. Because it's largely the British press they're playing to, they've started with names of the...
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Posted by greg at
2:53 PM
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Comments (1)
April 13, 2005
The Freakonomics guys shoulda quit while they were ahead. Their excerpt on how and why baby names proliferate is not only not very freaky, it's pretty flimsy. Reading it, it felt like any tuned-in parent would have a better sense...
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Posted by greg at
6:37 AM
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Comments (0)
April 11, 2005
Slate is running a two-part excerpt from Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, a new book by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, which discusses the impact of giving babies super-black names (i.e., names that...
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Posted by greg at
10:41 AM
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Comments (7)
March 31, 2005
Congratulations to new parents Ronald and Patricia, who's daughter Aryan shares a birthday with George Washington. Aryan Justice's birth announcement [newbabynews.net, via lindsayism]...
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Posted by greg at
8:12 PM
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Comments (13)
March 29, 2005
From Gawker:I saw B.D. Wong on Seventh Ave. this morning holding hands with a toddler. If I recall, he and his partner adopted a child, named him Foo, then B.D. wrote a book about two men raising a baby, then...
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Posted by greg at
10:34 AM
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Comments (0)
March 18, 2005
In case you haven't already figured it out, I don't read the Washington Post all that often. So apologies for posting this old [Nov. 2004], kind of predictable article on Those Wacky Celebrity Baby Names which I turned up while...
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Posted by greg at
11:02 AM
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Comments (7)
Now that is sweet. On just the rumer that Ashton Kutcher might be needing a "daddy type" trucker hat, Gawker has generously offered to help the punk'd star and his lovely consort Demi scout out names for the l'il, uh--forget...
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Posted by greg at
10:20 AM
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Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Namenerds.com certainly has a dauntingly long list of nerd names. Their particular definition of nerd name seems to be even narrower than "names of sci-fi TV show and movie characters," though. Their "name your baby nerd" list, largely culled from...
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Posted by greg at
9:55 AM
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Comments (3)
February 8, 2005
Enough with the "We named her Trinity cuz The Matrix is so cool." already. Mother/software designer/writer Laura Wattenberg has just put out The Baby Name Wizard, which injects some welcome data-crunching, analytical rigor to the amorphous, emotional task of babynaming....
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Posted by greg at
2:42 PM
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Comments (6)
January 28, 2005
While you could ask where Sem and Senna came from--they're the top boy and girl names, respectively for 2004--it's more interesting to compare the classical (to my ear) Dutch names that were popular in 1939--Johannes, Jan, Hendrik, Willem, Johanna, Wilhelmina--with...
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Posted by greg at
9:52 AM
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Comments (4)
January 27, 2005
In 1996, as a protest to a court order to register an official name for their new child, a Swedish couple named him Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116. Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 Hallin. They said it was "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic...
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Posted by greg at
3:08 PM
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Comments (9)
January 19, 2005
You've already reserved your Darth Tater. Your plush Jawa is still new in box, with tags. What's the one thing no serious Star Wars collection can do without, yet is made all the more difficult to obtain precisely because...
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Posted by greg at
9:40 AM
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Comments (3)
January 10, 2005
In India, Lakshmi Roy put his family, including his 8-months pregnant wife, on his bike and pedaled them to higher ground to escape the tsunami. His wife then went into labor and delivered the baby three weeks early. Some wiseacre...
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Posted by greg at
1:59 PM
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Comments (0)
January 1, 2005
As writer Rich Cohen tells how he and his wife came up with their son's name, he goes through just slightly over half the frightening/funny/weighty/ stress-inducing/exasperating thoughts and experiences an expectant father has to deal with:In the seventh month of...
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Posted by greg at
2:43 PM
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Comments (3)
November 30, 2004
The random names generated by spammers seem as good a pool as any to look for baby names. You could either sift through your inbox, or use an online random name generator. I think John Cage would approve. Mike Campbell's...
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Posted by greg at
10:34 AM
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Comments (1)
October 30, 2004
Unlike Denmark, Romania clearly has no government-approved list of baby names for parents to choose from. A couple was racing to the hospital in some random city (seriously, does it matter?). The wife's in labor in the car. The husband's...
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Posted by greg at
12:57 AM
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Comments (0)
October 13, 2004
Helen Hunt, you've been warned. Like in other Scandinavian countries (and Germany and Japan and the list goes on...), the Danish government maintains an official list of baby names parents can choose from. Any deviation from that list must be...
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Posted by greg at
10:58 AM
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Comments (0)
October 12, 2004
Celebrity Baby Blog has compiled an exhaustive list of names and dates for every famous person in the world who's had a baby this year. Everyone. Seriously. Very good for name ideas, whether to use or to avoid, it's up...
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Posted by greg at
7:51 PM
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Comments (8)
September 29, 2004
Oh my heck, I am so sorry I didn't post this sooner. This was the site I would introduce people to "the WorldWide Web, the graphical portion of the Internet" with way back in the day. A lot has changed...
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Posted by greg at
12:16 PM
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Comments (1)
September 28, 2004
Who knew that in this era of worldwide religiously inspired harmony and human fellowship, where we all just help each other freely as we wait patiently for The Rapture or Nirvana or The Messiah or whatever, that some people actually...
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Posted by greg at
4:51 PM
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Comments (3)
September 20, 2004
Everyone knows the Blackout Baby Theory, and I remember hearing about a very localized Snowstorm Baby Theory when Microsoft's overworked programmers got stuck at home for a few days. But the Hurricane-Baby Theory is on the other end of the...
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Posted by greg at
10:16 AM
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Comments (0)
September 6, 2004
An incomplete list of nicknames given to the little fetus by expecting moms and dads, culled from the UrbanBaby message boards: Moms: Cookie Pie Face Squirt Rice ("b/c the lady who did my ultrasound said, 'like a piece of rice'")...
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Posted by greg at
9:54 AM
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Comments (22)
September 4, 2004
Any name's fine, as long as it's Jadzia. Also popular: B'elanna, and Seven (of Nine). i.e., all the alien hottie characters. Let me go on record here: any Star Trek name is going to be several circles deeper in taunting...
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Posted by greg at
10:32 AM
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Comments (3)
Running down the slippery naming slope here. Anyone could name their kid Cooper, but if you want to name him that because you loved BASEketball, The cult film fansite, Mutant Reviewers From Hell, has a baby name list for you....
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Posted by greg at
10:01 AM
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Comments (0)
September 3, 2004
These names are acceptable if your child is born with pointy ears, hairy feet, or an obviously orc-like face. Dwarf-like doesn't cut it because, let's face it, they all come out looking a bit like dwarves. Lord of The Ring...
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Posted by greg at
1:13 PM
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Comments (1)
June 11, 2004
[via the Celebrity Baby Blog] If ever there were a kid wishing he was named after George Lucas's dog, it's Indiana August Affleck, who was born May 31st in Amsterdam, where his dad Casey is filming Oceans Twelve. Apparently, Affleck...
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Posted by greg at
9:51 AM
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Comments (2)
[via a Gawker reader in Texas] "Hilton Furniture owner Jack Hilton, quite a celebrity with his energetic cheap local-only Houston commercials, introduced his baby daughter on a commercial today. He named his daughter Paris. Paris Hilton." Related Tip: Use Google...
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Posted by greg at
9:23 AM
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Comments (1)
June 9, 2004
British researchers studying "the mathematics of cultural transmission" have published a statistical analysis of the emergence of popular new baby names. The Economist reviewed their results. Some key factors: new, non-traditional names are almost 2x more likely for girls than...
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Posted by greg at
2:27 PM
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Comments (0)
May 29, 2004
Strawberry Saroyan (granddaughter of William) gives some friendly, reassuring advice for Apple Martin in the NY Times Style section. Strawberry and her sister, Cream's names were suggested by their grandmother, but readily adopted by her artist mother and "one-word poet"...
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Posted by greg at
10:40 AM
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Comments (0)
May 27, 2004
LOLOL ...How about Lou? When I was in England, I heard that name and it seemed to have a little tinkle to it. Randy is good too. You weren't listening QUITE hard enough in England, were you? ... And then...
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Posted by greg at
10:37 PM
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Comments (11)
May 21, 2004
Apple Martin's falling, so to speak, from the tree, has intensified the water cooler-level interest in baby-naming strategies. Strategies, as opposed to categories or outcomes: Asking a longtime friend for permission to name your child after theirs is both honorable...
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Posted by greg at
3:26 PM
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Comments (0)
May 17, 2004
When they have a baby, some musicians get their friends together and make silly T-shirts. Others get their friends together, put on silly wigs, and make silly videos. Coldplay, it turns out, falls into the latter category. To celebrate the...
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Posted by greg at
7:16 PM
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Comments (6)
April 21, 2004
From McSweeney's: Baby Names for an Expected Sister Suggested by Nathaniel Watson, Age Six Early on, in the interest of drumming up ideas and goodwill among cousins, and avoiding children's-eye-level trends ("Well, there are 10 Isabelle's in my class."), we...
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Posted by greg at
2:35 PM
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Comments (0)
Retired NJ Net Jayson Williams isn't relying on the criminal justice system to fill all his spare time. The NYPost reports that Williams and his wife Tanya just had a second child. Little Whizdom J. Williams joins her sister, Tryumph,...
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Posted by greg at
1:57 PM
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Comments (0)
April 8, 2004
Shahd (pure honey) became popular on the back of the Ramadan 2002 soap Amira fi Abdin, which featured a character of the same name. Bawabat Al-Halawani, a soap first shown on Egyptian TV in the late 1990s, introduced the...
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Posted by greg at
12:03 PM
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Comments (0)
February 18, 2004
Consider Beyond Jennifer and Jason, which groups possible names into very useful categories. In fact, the categories are almost more helpful, since they can focus your naming efforts. For example, we found categories like Soap Opera Names, TV Character Names,...
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Posted by greg at
12:26 AM
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Comments (0)
February 12, 2004
To this list of standard baby name dealbreakers: - Already too trendy - Used by celebrity parents - Soap opera characters > 0 - The WB/USA Network characters > 0 - Vanity URL availability I would add: Google search results...
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Posted by greg at
12:43 AM
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Comments (0)
