Monday April 24, 2006

The Baby Name Shortage

Lots of ink has been spilled lately on the pressing problem of why celebrities give their children strange names. Last week, the New York Times went looking for explanations. As the story notes, unconventional names aren’t just for celebs. Names like “Karen” and “Joseph” have been replaced by “Madison” and “Caleb” on the list of America’s most popular names—celebrities just take it a bit further.

The Times offers a sociological answer, suggesting that “if celebrities are the new American aristocracy, the exotic baby name can sometimes function as the equivalent of a royal title, a way for a privileged caste to bestow the power of its legacy on future generations.”

But I think the baby name boom is tied to a much more banal fact, which is that you probably don’t want to name your child after someone you’ve slept with. Divorce has become more common and parenthood often comes later in life, which gives future parents lots of time to get their freak on and effectively eliminate a lot of names for their children. According to the CDC, women 30-44 report having had four sexual partners, while men report having had six to eight. That’s a dozen or so baby names gone—more if you were around long enough to learn a partner’s middle name—before you’ve even settled down to have kids. It’s no wonder “John” has completely slipped out of the top 10.

Now imagine how quickly potential names for celebrity offspring vanish. No wonder Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are considering a Namibian name for their child. Between their hotness and Angelina’s bisexuality, that might be all they have left—especially if it’s a girl. Chris Martin, of course, is a rock star (the most promiscuous baby-name eliminators), so “Apple Paltrow” starts to seem reasonable—and the fact that he and Gwyneth were still able to name their son “Moses” makes Ms. Paltrow seem postively chaste. On the other hand, Beth Riesgraf—fiance to Jason Lee and mother to Pilot Inspektor—must have quite a past, or else Mr. Lee has been eliminating boy names on the sly.

And then Tom Cruise names his daughter Suri, which—well—doesn’t really have anything to do with this theory. He’s just a weirdo.

Posted by jim at 03:11 PM ||