Category archive: names

May 7, 2013

Harrison Ford Will Not Name Your Kid For You

So this just happened at the San Francisco International Film Festival:1st question from the audience was would Harrison [Ford] name their son who is scheduled to arrive in 4 Days.Glad he left it to them! #SFIFF— Ted Hope (@TedHope) May...
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April 15, 2013

And If It's A Boy, We'll Name Him Felonious

This is probably one of those days when you come home and hug Biggles, Posie and Tuppence extra tight. And then curl up with a subreddit full of other peoples' eye-opening baby names: "I knew a Hamiley. A combination...
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February 22, 2013

Not Enough Kids Are Named Ib

Am I just not hearing about it, or are more people really somehow not naming their kids Ib? Previously: mid-century rocker by Ib Kofod-Larsen Related: Steve Zuckerman's OG Sesame Street songs...
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February 1, 2013

Area Man Says Baby Naming Is A First Amendment Right

As a Naming Freedom-loving American, I guess it's natural I find the BBC's half-hearted attempt to answer the question, "Why do some countries regulate baby names?" unpersuasive: " it's about meeting certain rules of grammar and gender, and saving the...
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January 15, 2013

The First Production Baby

It's been a tradition at Pixar since Toy Story to list the "production babies" born to crew, in each film's credits. Other animation houses do it, too, and lately video game designers picked up on the trend. [They're called "development...
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November 27, 2012

Crown Prince Olaf's Baby Cadillac

London Cadillac dealer Frank Bennett created this electric-powered "Baby Cadillac" in 1912 as a promotional stunt. It caught the attention of Queen Alexandra, wife of Kind Edward VI, who bought it for her grandson, Crown Prince Olaf of Norway....
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November 5, 2012

'Weird' Science

You know how it used to be that everyone you knew from Hong Kong's English names sounded like they were taken from an E.M Forster novel? Well not anymore. At least I think that's what this really long Atlantic article...
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October 15, 2012

I Count One Homeschooling Dad

There's a lot of Tiger Momming going on in this NY Magazine's profile of five NYC homeschooling families. Also a lot of momming in general. And one dad who taught one class once Antonin Dvorak. Also, parents saying things like...
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October 9, 2012

There Is No I In ADHD

Kids are taking ADHD drugs to offset the effects of underfunded schools: "If I don't take my medicine I'd be having attitudes. I'd be disrespecting my parents. I wouldn't be like this." Despite Quintn's experience with Adderall, the Rocaforts decided...
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October 1, 2012

The Littlest Yahoo

Baby boy Bogue born last night. Mom (@marissamayer) and baby are doing great--we couldn't be more excited!— Zachary Bogue (@zackbogue) October 1, 2012 Just got a large-group email from @marissamayer. She's crowdsourcing suggestions for Baby Boy Bogue's name! How digital...
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September 12, 2012

Silver Cross Surf's Up! Unidentified Local Mum Wipes Out On Sidewalk

My favorite part of this paparazzi photo of Astala Dylan Willow Geldof-Cohen's Silver Cross Surf pram and car seat getting stuck in a gap on the sidewalk and pitching him to the ground is his little feet. So cute....
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Pinteresting

Chris Verene Family pinterest.com/pin/2422796549... viaEven my Aunt thinks that it is cool to be on @pinterestBTW: Lexus is 5 years old now.— Chris Verene (@ChrisVerene) September 12, 2012...
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September 4, 2012

My Son, My Son, What Have I Done?

From Grand Island, Nebraska's Channel 10 11 News [1,011? 10&11? Do they have so many channels in Nebraska, or so few that they're combining them now?] comes a story of a 3yo boy who uses sign language and the...
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July 17, 2012

Florida Baby Born A Few MInutes Early

Congratulations and all to the Malleys of Melbourne, FL, but the fact that "Big Gulp" is only the kid's nickname, not his actual name, means that this entire story is really just, "Fireman/EMT delivers wife's baby in 7-Eleven parking lot,"...
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June 28, 2012

Problem Is, She'll Be Obsolete Before She Starts Pre-School

Just met a young, seemingly-pleasant couple who named their new baby Retina Display.— Matt Thomas (@mattthomas) June 29, 2012...
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June 24, 2012

Billy Manbo, WWII Flying Ace

This is pretty extraordinary. During World War II, Los Angeleno Bill Manbo and his family were imprisoned along with thousands of other Japanese Americans in an internment camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. But he somehow managed to take photos--Kodachrome slides,...
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June 7, 2012

Basically, You Should Name Your Kid Django

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May 14, 2012

Wairforit

Waitforit would be a pretty awesome middle name.— Guan Yang (@guan) May 15, 2012...
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April 10, 2012

It's Short For Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

"Somewhere in the middle it gets awfully queer to me." Really, though, all I can think is that Abcde is going to have a serious ZOMG moment when she's old enough to correlate her name with the alphabet song....
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March 12, 2012

Bezos Is His Middle Name

I'm going to name my first child Amazon. I'm incredibly grateful to them. There's no other way to put it but that working with Amazon totally changed my life for the better.writer/bartender-turned-writer Mishka Shubaly, talking about his experience making like...
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March 6, 2012

I Dunno, I Think It Could Work

Just heard this dad call his toddler son "Finster" #thanksforruiningmylifedad.— Hennessy Youngman (@therealhennessy) March 6, 2012 UPDATE Thanks to DT reader David for remembering Babyface Finster [image via minorlooneytunes.com]:...
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March 2, 2012

Y Procreator

Megyn Kelly has two children named "Yates" and "Yardley." I will now name her next five kids: Yoohoo, Yorkman, Yuk-Yuk, Yamsy, and Yikes.— Joe Mande (@JoeMande) March 2, 2012 Previously, like 2005, related:...
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February 10, 2012

DT Friday Freakout: Diet Coke Edition

I don't know about you, but for me, this week's roundup of headlines from the worlds of science, health, and parenting is a Super Double Big Gulp of freakout. I'd drown my freakout in Diet Coke, but, well: Diet sodas...
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February 3, 2012

Blue Ivy's Got 99 Problems, But A Drawn Out Trademark Application Process Ain't One

From TESS, the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Electronic Search System: Word Mark BLUE IVY CARTER Goods and Services IC 003. US 001 004 006 050 051 052. G & S: Fragrances, cosmetics, skin care products, namely, non-medicated skin...
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February 1, 2012

Chipotla FTW!

Alright, maybe one more. This xkcd list of girl names is pretty outstanding. Nothing against Chipotla, but if I could spell "[sound of record scratch]," it would've been my top pick. xkcd.com/1011 [xkcd via rolf again, like I said,...
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January 27, 2012

'The Quarry Whence Modern Names Are Hewn'

The past and the future once again meet in the present, with generally awesome effect. Because while it seems normal that you can now instantly find and buy a copy of Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley's suddenly indispensable 1888 book, Curiosities...
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Peregrine White Had A Posse

God bless the Puritans and their Biblical baby naming strategies. Or as they might put it, God, please don't damn their infants to a fiery hell for only having a two- or three-word scripture phrase as a given/baptismal name. Sarah...
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January 23, 2012

BREAKING: Performers Name Children

During my formative literary and journalistic years, when I discovered it as source of inspiring, vital writing and reporting, as well as outrageously smart, outrage-inducing statistics, devastatingly presented, Harper's Magazine was led by Lewis Lapham. At one point, I hoped...
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January 21, 2012

Ryan Trecartin Baby Names

Delta, Just, Spin, Glendale, Cement. While none are required, of course, Each of video artist/savant Ryan Trecartin's baby name suggestions would be enhanced by one or more diacritics [offer not valid in all jurisdictions]. [via @ryantrecartin]...
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January 19, 2012

Government-Approved Baby Names Blow My American Dad Mind

It really is the little differences. Like having to get government approval for your kid's name. Seriously, rest-of-the-world, what is up with that?Less noble concerns play a role, too. First names that imitate lofty titles remain the most frequently disallowed...
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December 15, 2011

Wait, Have We Really Reached Peak Ava?

No, Avas did not cause the housing bubble. As this graph clearly shows, people with large home equity lines of credit were just three times as likely to nae their kid Ava. Way to look through the wrong end...
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December 12, 2011

You Have Just Entered The Xyvyn Xone

So I'm reading along in SFTU Parents, thinking, maybe I should really get on Facebook after all. I mean, it's apparently where all the WTFBabyName stories are happening the days. And then there's the 277 and counting comments? In the...
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November 26, 2011

Google Is Why My Daughter Is Not Named India Allen

According to this New York Times story, some expectant parents recently ran their baby name list through Google to weed out the stripper names. Which means the cycle for parenting stories is four years. What's In A Name? Ask Google...
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November 23, 2011

The Hyphens Are Multiplying

Some baby boomers gave their kids hyphenated names, and now those kids are having kids of their own! How are they managing the naming, the New York Times wonders? Not to worry, because everyone but their self-absorbed/actualized parents has been...
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November 18, 2011

The Peregrine White Cradle

While searching for historical photos of feather beds [long story, another time], I stumbled across this, the Peregrine White Cradle, a woven willow cradle brought from Holland by Susanna and William White, who were expecting their first child when...
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July 27, 2011

Jason Rohrer And The Game Of Life

There was a moment on the plane yesterday where the kids had all the iPads, and I was left to read Hemispheres Inflight Magazine. Which had a nice but kind of bewildering profile of awesome independent video game developer Jason...
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July 23, 2011

Enterprise Rodeo Contestant Name Roundup

We took the kids to the Enterprise Rodeo last night, a 3-night, old school, amateur rodeo held in the tiny farm town of Enterprise, Utah [pop. 1,200 or 1,700 or so]. It was packed, and awesome, and it's completely turned...
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July 9, 2011

16 And Naming Babies

There's really nothing I can add except my non-stop tennis applause: 16 First and Middle Names of Babies on 16 and Pregnant, in Order of How Much I Spit Out My Drink When They Were Revealed [thehairpin.com]...
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May 25, 2011

It's Just A Hippie Naming Strategy

I really hope marijuana legalization works out and whatever, but his name is by far the most interesting thing in this whole "flaky, slightly shady 'Oakland potpreneur'" story: The letters in his first name stand for "yes and no." His...
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May 11, 2011

Baby Dada: Swiss Artists Lookin' To License Another Baby

In 2005 the Swiss bad boy artists duo Com & Com had a project called Gugusdada, in which they offered 10,000 CHF to the parents who agreed to name their kid Dada, like the old, absurdist, art movement. The...
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February 21, 2011

Mazeltov, Facebook!

To honor the website which recently liberated his country an Egyptian dad has named his baby daughter Facebook. I suspect setting up Facebook's Facebook page will be only slightly easier than toppling the Mubarak regime. To Celebrate The #Jan25 Revolution,...
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February 10, 2011

OXO Is Finally Making Baby Gear

A generation ago, OXO's soft-handled potato peeler revolutionized the kitchen gadget market. Now, finally, they're making baby gear. And well, it kind of looks like every ergonomic and slightly designy toddler spoon and sippy cup on the market. I...
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January 7, 2011

What Other Baby Naming Taboos Am I Missing Here?

Personally, our family's naming taboos, weren't taboos, per se, just bad ideas: no soap opera characters and no awkward Google results. For example, India was on the kid's prenatal shortlist until I Googled "India Allen." [What can I say, I...
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October 17, 2010

How To Earn $100 The Easy Way

Dear Expectant Parent, While pairing pop songs with his celebrity-rewrites of Anton Chekhov stories, including Bonnie Tyler's immortal classic, "Holding Out For A Hero," New Yorker editor Ben Greenman makes expectant parents an offer they'd be crazy to refuse:Sing along...
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July 14, 2010

Why Is This Kindergarten Commencement Speech Different From All Other Kindergarten Commencement Speeches?

You know, I went to kindergarten with a lot of Jewish kids. I learned to swim at the JCC. But my shtreimel goes off to dt pal Marjorie, who clearly used the latest, most advanced Jewish kid name generator software...
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April 16, 2010

Class Of The Titans

I was found this awesome name cluster in a 1963 New Yorker profile of a Bell Labs chief, Dr. John Pierce, by Calvin Tomkins last night.:When they were seniors at Woodrow Wilson [High School in Long Beach, CA], Pierce, [Apollo]...
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April 15, 2010

Last One Out

So weird to think that because they can't build a bunch of condos, the hospital's bankrupt and closing. Anyway, the NYT has the story on the last baby born at St. Vincent's in the West Village. If only the reporter...
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April 8, 2010

The Isabella Boom, Explained

Apparently, if your first name is Isabella, you get free admission for life at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. And if your first name is Renzo, you get free admission for life to every museum with an ill-advised...
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March 16, 2010

More Blogger Baby Names Released To The Wild

In case Tina's crowdsourced Swiss Miss list didn't help you, Jason Kottke has made his and Meg's unused baby name list available. It's solid, but pretty boy-heavy. Does this mean uberbloggers are still hoarding their lists of girls' names? Or...
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February 20, 2010

10,000 Crowdsourced 4-Letter Boys Names

Congratulations to Tina and G on the birth of Swissmister. Hope he's out of the NICU and home soon. They named him Tilo, which is close to Till, one of the 10,000 4-letter boys names Tina crowd-sourced last fall. Which...
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