jacob and isabella topped the recently announced most popular baby names of the year list. in the 80's, many babies were named after soap operas characters (a shout out to all the kayla's out there). this year the twilight series holds that distinction, with the boy name cullen moving up 300 spots. but for all the isalbella's out there, there are also those parents who choose give their children names that are just not necessary, like: tiny hooker, fanny large and wanna towell (some of the names highlighted in the new book bad baby names, based on thousands of shocking names given to real people, as recorded by the u.s. census beauru).
the past decade also saw some odd name trends, including selling your baby's name to the highest bidder on e-bay and giving your baby a corporate trademarked name (nautica, lexus and armani have joined the ranks of america's top 1,000 names, and almost no popular brand seems off limits...at last count, four american boys sported the name espn).
this trend of horrible baby names goes well beyond the coastlines of the u.s.
the bbc recently published a list of the most unfortunate names in the uk - which included: barb dwyer, stan still, paige turner, carrie oakey and tim burr.
while the u.s. doesn't regulate baby names, other countries are starting to. a nine year old girl in new zealand was rescued by a judge who ordered a name change when her parents tried to name her talula does the hula from hawaii. that same judge also mentioned other cases in new zealand where children were named number 16 bus shelter, midnight chardonnay and two pairs of twins named benson and hedges, and fish and chips.
in germany, your baby name has to be approved by the german standesamt who maintain that the name must reflect the sex of the child, and not endanger the wellbeing of the child. in sweden, parents protested a new law requiring that all swedish baby names be approved by naming their baby brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (the name, which they pronounced as “albin” was rejected). denmark is quite conservative about baby names, with a list of about 7000 pre-approved names to choose from. if you want to deviate from the list, you need special approval.
my point, and i do have one...is i'm as much about creativity as much as the next person (if not more) but come on people - life is hard enough as it is, why put kids behind the eight ball right off the bat? what’s your point?
