This is my last post before New Year’s Eve. I’m taking a couple of days off, and I’ll be back online with my regular daily posts on January 3rd.
It’s been a great year for celebrity baby names and I hope 2007 will be just as much fun.
Enjoy the holidays, stay safe, and see you in the New Year.
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“Kal-El”
Who had an ego so big that he had to have the only boy on the planet named Kal-El? (Superman’s Kryponite birth name). You got it, Nicolas Cage.
Cage has been quoted as saying about his son’s name: “I’ll bet you within five or 10 years, there will be a lot more Kal-Els. It just happens that my son is the only one right now.”
Er… I don’t think so, Mr. Cage. After all, there aren’t too many Moon Units, Moxie Crimefighters, or Pilot Inspektors running around. Dumb names are dumb names. To name your kid after a comic book hero is just plain silly, and most people are smarter than that.
The most significant part of Cage’s quote is the last bit: “my son is the only one right now.” It’s the same urge that makes many celebrities come up with really unusual names — they do it for themselves. It’s an ego thing.
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“Violet”
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner had their daughter Violet baptized on Christmas Eve, in Virginia, where Garner hails from. It seemed like a good time to nominate Violet for celebrity baby name of the day.
Unlike tomorrow’s celebrity baby name parent, Nicolas Cage, Affleck and Garner went the traditional route, and I’m sure Violet will thank them in years to come. Violet, named of course for the flower, is a classic name, and one which was very popular in Victorian England. But such classic names are making a comeback, especially in England, but also, to a lesser extent, in the United States.
Affleck and Garner are on the leading edge of a trend to give babies, even celebrity babies, more classic names. ‘Rose’ was certainly the most popular floral celebrity baby name of 2006, but I’m confident we’ll see an expansion of traditional names in 2007.
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It wasn’t an easy task, pulling just ten names out of all the celebrity baby names of 2006. There were so many great ones to choose from. But in the end, I had to stick with criteria like newsworthiness (Suri etc), and weirdness (Penn Jillette again!), with a dash of trend-spotting thrown in for good measure.
But most of all, it was a lot of fun coming up with the ten most notable names, remembering the funny times, like when everyone discovered that Sutton Pierce was really Jayden James, or when the name Suri turned out to mean “pointy-nosed” in the Toda language of southern India. It was a great year!
So — the drum roll please, and starting in tenth place, herewith is my annual Ten Most Notable Celebrity Baby Names of 2006:
# 10. Tennyson.
The son of Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer. Russell Crowe is supposedly a big fan of the 19th century British poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. If it’s true, Crowe is the only person since Queen Victoria to admire Tennyson. Generations of British schoolchildren learned to hate the stuffy poet, and it’s likely that Crowe, Jr. will also.
# 9. Jessie James.
Daughter (one of twins) born to media mogul Diddy and his girlfriend Kim Porter. It’s not every day a little girl is given the same name as famous outlaw Jesse James. According to a Diddy spokesperson, the name was in honor of Diddy’s grandmother, Jessie.
# 8. Thijs.
How do you pronounce ‘Thijs?’ Good question. Today Show host Matt Lauer and wife Annette Roque slapped the unpronounceable moniker on their newborn son in November. Why? Well, because Annette is Dutch, and ‘Thijs’ is an abbreviation of the shortened Dutch variant of Matthew. And it’s pronounced Tice. Why not just name him Matt Junior?
# 7. Johnnie Rose.
Before you leap to conclusions, Johnnie Rose is the daughter of Melissa Etheridge & Tammy Lynn Michaels. Johnnie may be an unusual name for a girl, but when did being unusual ever stop a celebrity? Little Johnnie Rose is named in honor of Melissa Etheridge’s father, who, according to a post on Tammy Lynn Michael’s blog, was a very important figure in her early life.
# 6. Zolten.
No celebrity baby name list is complete without a clanger from Penn Jillette and wife Emily Zolten. Last year, they named their daughter Moxie Crimefighter. This year, they named their son ‘Zolten,’ which happens to be Mrs. Jillette’s maiden name. And they would have gotten away with it, except that in explaining their choice, Jillette stated that “most importantly, it’s the name of Dracula’s dog. And that’s the meaning that has stuck.
# 5.Moses.
When Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their son Moses, it left many observers puzzled. Why? Back in 2004 they named their daughter Apple. Did they now pick an ultra-traditional name to compensate? Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have worked. Now all anyone can focus on is the sibling combination they have created. As in, “hi, please meet our two kids, Apple and Moses.” It just doesn’t work. Maybe Penn Jillette is on the right track. Give the first one a weird name, give ‘em all a weird name.
# 4. Dannielynn Hope.
In September, the tragic death of Anna Nicole Smith’s 20 year-old son touched everyone. In the soap opera of Anna Nicole’s life, it seemed that Daniel was an innocent bystander. Smith’s daughter was born a few days before Daniel’s death, and by naming her Dannielynn Hope, in honor of a brother she will never know, Smith at least did one thing well.
# 3. Jayden James.
Is it Sutton? Is it Jesse? Is it a boy? Is it a girl? September was a month of frenzied speculation, as everyone awaited the birth of Britney Spears’s and Kevin Federline’s second child. First, everyone thought ‘he’ would be a ‘she’. Wrong. Then everyone thought his name was Sutton Pierce. Wrong again. But more than a month passed before the world learned the shocking truth: little Sutton Pierce was really named Jayden James. Jayden means ‘Thankful’ in Hebrew. The little guy is likely be anything but thankful, when he’s old enough to understand where he landed.
# 2. Suri.
In April, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced the birth of their daughter, Suri. What did ‘Suri’ mean? Experts from Israel were consulted, when it appeared that ‘Suri’ meant ‘get lost’ in Hebrew. Other meanings surfaced from around the globe. It meant ‘rose’ in Persian; ‘sun’ in Sanskrit; it was a Pashtun tribe in India, and a ‘pickpocket’ in Japan. No-one knew what to believe. Then, it was revealed that ‘Suri’ meant ‘pointy-nosed’ among the Toda people of southern India. Suri’s stock was sinking fast. So Tom and Katie, Inc. went into full damage-control mode. October’s Vanity Fair magazine was graced with a touching photo spread that portrayed little Suri with her doting parents. It worked. Everyone now loves little Suri. Even though no-one still knows what the name really means.
# 1. Shiloh Nouvel.
Only the second coming of the Messiah could rival the media hysteria of May, 2006, as the world waited for Angelina to give birth. For weeks, Brad and Angelina had co-opted the entire African nation of Namibia, as their personal maternity ward. The world’s press was agog with excitement. When little Shiloh finally arrived, nobody cared that much about her name. What the world cared about was that the waiting was over, and Angelina had really had her baby. The planet released its collective breath, which it had been holding for several weeks. The baby was finally here. Who cared if a few party poopers associated ‘Shiloh’was some bloodstained Civil War battlefield? Brad and Angelina had picked the name, and therefore it was good. The most-anticipated baby in human history had arrived. Mother and daughter were doing fine. It was only May, 2006, but the celebrity baby of the year had arrived.
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Twin baby girls arrived on Thursday for Sean “Diddy” Combs and his girlfriend Kim Porter.
One of the twins, D’Lila Star, was named after Porter’s grandmother Lila Star. OK, that’s a nice name, and a good reason.
And her little sister? She was named Jessie James, after Diddy’s grandmother, Jessie.
Early reports indicated that the little girl’s name was spelled “Jesse,” but things seem to have changed. There’s no indication that Grandma Combs was a six gun-toting outlaw who waylaid stagecoaches and robbed banks throughout the Old West. It must be a Hollywood thing.
photo by Photorazzi
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Star chef Wolfgang Puck, and his fiancee Gelila Assefa, received an early Christmas present on December 18, with the arrival of their second son in Los Angeles.
The high-profile restauranteur and the handbag-designing Assefa named their new son Alexander. He joins older brother Oliver, who was born last year.
The name Alexander is of Greek origin, and means “defender of man.” But I doubt the little guy will be interested much in following in Alexander the Great’s footsteps, at least for a while. He’ll be more interested in whether Dad will make him some of those Austrian pastries.
Photo by Photorazzi
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“Dannielynn Hope”
I usually poke some fun at obviously made-up celebrity baby names. But today’s name, “Dannielynn Hope,” is not one of those. It is a name that has stuck with me since the tragic death of Anna Nicole Smith’s 20 year-old son, Daniel, in September of this year.Â
At the time of his death, apparently caused by an overdose of prescription drugs, Daniel was a visitor at the hospital in the Bahamas where his mother had just given birth to his sister.
Smith named her newborn daughter Dannielynn Hope shortly after Daniel died. Whenever I come across Anna Nicole Smith’s name in the news, I think about her son, and about the little girl who never knew her brother. And while I don’t have anything nice to say about most of Anna Nicole Smith’s antics, I do think she picked a good baby name for her daughter.
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“Oriole Nebula”
Can you guess what decade it was when a celebrity gave this name to his daughter? If you guessed the Seventies, you’re right. And can you guess who came up with it?
It was Donovan, that quintessential child of the hippie era, who, despite turning sixty this year, continues to prance around the global folk/rock music scene, dressed in a fringed jacket, guitar slung over his shoulder, radiating peace and love, and ignoring the fact that he’s stuck in a decade that ended more than a quarter century ago. You gotta love him for it.
Anyway, it was Donovan, and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Linda Lawrence, herself the ex-girlfriend of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, who named one of their daughters “Oriole Nebula.”
I’ve been trying to find out what happened to little Oriole Nebula, because I wanted to see if there are any documented traumas from growing up with a name like that. But Oriole Nebula seems to have achieved the impossible — she has managed to stay beneath the Google radar all these years.
Or maybe she just changed her name.
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Jeffrey Tambor, star of Fox Television’s critically-acclaimed series Arrested Development, and his wife Kasia Ostlun, welcomed a baby girl on December 10. The second child for the couple, she is named Eve Julia.
I recall that Eve was the middle name chosen by actress Jennie Garth for her new daughter earlier this year. Time to look a little deeper into the name Eve, just in case a trend is underway.
Eve is originally a Hebrew name, meaning, literally, “to breathe,” or “to live.” Some experts, such as Judith Tropea, author of Biblical Baby Names, define it as “Life Giver.” (No mention of an apple).
How popular is the name Eve? According to the Social Security Administration’s Popular Baby Names page, the name Eve has never been wildly popular. But in recent years, it shows signs of increasing usage.
I think it’s a name that is on the way up. I think Jeffrey Tambor and Jennie Garth may be starting a trend.Â
Photo by Photorazzi
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Lizzie Grubman, the New York publicist who narrowly avoided serious jail time for driving her S.U.V. into a crowd of people outside a nightclub in July, 2001, is a new mom. The wealthy heiress (daddy is multi-millionaire entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman) 
and her husband Chris Stern welcomed their baby boy in New York on December 12. The little guy’s name is Harrison Irving, “Harry” for short.
Grubman has been on the receiving end of scorching satire from gossip sites ever since she ploughed into the crowd at the Southampton, NY nightclub in 2001. Her conduct after the incident was not particularly remorseful, starting with her fleeing the scene. She was charged in a 26-count felony indictment, but escaped the slammer (except for a short stay) in a plea deal that included five years probation. According to CNN she pleaded guilty to hit-and-run and criminally negligent assault.
In the finest tradition of American celebrity comebacks, Grubman, who apparently is still on probation, is back in the public eye. In 2005 she appeared on MTV in her reality show PoweRGirls, about young, hungry, New York publicists at her p.r. firm. The short-lived series, sadly, did not include any episodes about driving lessons.
Photo by Photorazzi
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