It's all in a name

While waiting to find out what Britney has named the latest Feder-scion and wondering just how gawd-awful the name's going to be....

What are people thinking when they name their children?

It goes from the herd names...how many Jessicas, Jennifers, and Joshuas do we really need? (and what's with naming all your kids with the same initial no matter how tortured the spelling has to get to accomplish it?)

to people who think it's cute to name their child Rose Redd or Snow White or Apple Martin(i) (how sad is that Gwyneth Paltrow uses talking about her former boyfriends and naming her child something stupid to get some attention?)

to people who want their kids names to be so unique that they stick them with a moniker that no one's ever heard of much less knows how to spell (and just because Lemonjello, Oranjello, and Shaniqua are now in common usage it doesn't make them less awful)

to people that name their children after their favorite Soap characters or musical stars (Kayla, Shania....)

to people that take masculine names and think they look cute on little girls (I actually thought 'Madison' and 'MacKenzie' were cute the first twenty times I heard them)

I don't want conformity or a list of goverment approved names like the French but I do wish people with look at the longterm consequences when they pick a name for a child. And if you want to call your child 'Apple' or 'Coco' give them a regular legal name and call them whatever you want at home. That's what nicknames are for.

Ask any 'Bubba'