“Hopper”

It’s Friday afternoon, a good time for clicking around the web looking at other blogs and celebrity gossip sites.  I came across a very funny website called Innocent English. Their “humorous signs” section alone is worth a visit.

Naturally, being a site about English language mistakes, they have a page dedicated to celebrity baby names. Actually, I’m surprised they don’t have a whole page dedicated to Penn Jillette, but that’s another story.

Which brings me to the name Hopper. Not surprisingly, the name chosen by actor Sean Penn and actress Robin Wright Penn for their son in 1993 makes an appearance on the Innocent English list. And why wouldn’t it?

I admire Sean Penn tremendously as an actor. I think he is an absolute genius at his craft. But when it comes to naming a kid? Forget about it.

As it says on Dictionary.com, a hopper is a person or thing that hops. Or it’s a funnel-shaped thingy that you can pour grain through. It can even be the name of an insect, or a kangaroo. But not, most definitely not, the name for a child. I dread to think what he went through in grade school. The only thing that might have saved him is that most of his Hollywood classmates have weird names also.

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Posted on March 30th 2007 and posted to NAME OF THE DAY, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn | Comments(1)

 Update, March 31, 2007. Thanks to our reader Amy for the update - Mia Hamm’s twins are named Grace and Ava, two very classic names. We wrote about the name Ava recently, in connection with Reese Witherspoon’s daughter. It looks like it might become America’s top girl’s name.

Mia Hamm, the United States womens’ soccer legend, and her husband, Los Angeles Dodger’s first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, welcomed twin daughters today in Los Angeles, according to the Daily Blabber.

Hamm was a star of the U.S. womens’ national soccer team for 18 years. When she retired in 2004, her triumphs included two World Cups and two Olympic medals.

The names of the twins have not yet been released.

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Posted on March 28th 2007 and posted to CELEBRITY BABIES | Comments(35)

New York Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado, and his wife Betzaida, became first-time parents last week, as their son was born, two weeks early, in Puerto Rico, according to a story in the Houston Chronicle.

Little Delgado will be following in Dad’s footsteps when it comes to his name — Carlos Antonio. Time will tell if he’s going to be a baseball star!

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Nina Garcia, fashion director of Elle Magazine, and more importantly, judge of the T.V. show Project Runway, is a first-time mom. Garcia, and husband David Conrod, welcomed a baby boy on March 24 in New York. His name is Lucas Alexander.

I’m sure more details will be forthcoming soon at the unofficial, but widely-read, Project Runway blog.

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Actor Trevor St. John, who stars as Todd Manning in the ABC soap opera One Life To Live, and his wife Sara, are first time parents, as they welcomed their new son, Aidan Lee, on March 21.

In company with Matt Damon, St. John is currently shooting The Bourne Ultimatum, the third film in the Bourne trilogy based on the Robert Ludlum novels, scheduled for release later in 2007.

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It’s a well-known fact that some celebrity baby names can have a huge influence on the names that parents in general pick for their babies. The name Jaden, for example, has certainly gained popularity as a result of Will Smith’s and Jada Pinkett-Smith’s son Jaden. And we can expect to see a few Shilohs bouncing around by 2008. But probably the biggest celebrity name boost of the last year or so comes from Reese Witherspoon, reportedly now the highest-paid American actress of all time.

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe named their daughter Ava back in 1999, when the name was only  # 259 in popularity in the United States. In the years since, Ava has rocketed in popularity, and indicators show that the fast-climbing name will likely get a huge boost even from its 2005 ranking, # 9, when the 2006 rankings are published in May by the U. S. Social Security Administration.

In Oakland County, Michigan, the local records office has already counted their baby name registrations for 2006, and Ava is the number one girl’s name in their sampling. (Followed by Sophia). That’s in line with predictions from some baby name websites earlier in the year.

Has Reese Witherspoon replaced Julia Roberts as America’s sweetheart? She has passed her at the box office, and now Witherspoon seems to be setting the trend for what to name your baby girl. Of course, Julia Roberts didn’t do herself any favors in that department, naming her twins Hazel Patricia and Phinnaeus Walter. We’ll have to wait and see.

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Britney Spears, pictured here just before she went with the bald look, has given her son Jayden James one of the top androgynous names in America, based on the findings of a new study about unisex baby names.

The study, from the editors of Baby Names Garden, a leading website for baby names, shows that Jayden is the 8th most popular unisex name, or a name that is popular with both girls and boys. Did Britney know that Jayden was popular with both sexes before she picked it? Probably not. Other parents may be surprised to find their child’s name on the list as well.

Actress Holly Marie Combs named her baby boy Riley in 2006 - that’s the number 4 unisex name. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett’s baby boy, Angel, also born in 2006, has the third most popular androgynous name.

America’s number 1 unisex name? Jordan, by a wide margin. It ranks in the top 100 names for both boys and girls.

And for fans of country singer Brad Paisley - relax. Huckleberry is not on the list.

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NAME POLL UPDATE:

In our weeklong poll, Tori Spelling’s name for her baby boy, Liam Aaron, didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it didn’t bomb either. Over 70% of you either “loved it” or thought it was “okay.” The biggest response group was for the “okay” category. Okay.

Everyone has a MySpace page these days. (I have one, but I’m still working on it and trying to figure out what to do with it, since no-one ever seems to visit it). Hillary has one. Barack has one. All the stars have one. And Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott have one.

US Magazine pointed it out this morning. It’s called the Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott Officlal Site, and it’s decorated in the same turquoise and chocolate brown colors that they used for Liam’s nursery. Not surprisingly, it’s stuffed with news about their new baby boy, Liam Aaron.

Here is a quote from Spelling’s blogpost, just to give you an idea of how well things are going for the new family:

“I might be a biased mommy but he is so beautiful. I just stare at him in amazement. I can’t believe I have been given this unbelievable little gift. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. He is my little angel baby and I had no idea you could love someone you’ve only known for 4 days this much. But, my heart is jumping out of my chest with love. Mommihood ROCKS!”

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Posted on March 20th 2007 and posted to CELEBRITY BABIES, Tori Spelling, CELEBRITY BABY NAMES | Comments(1)

Actress Diane Farr, star of the CBS show Numb3rs, and her husband Seung Yong Chung, welcomed a baby boy on March 16, their first child.

According to BlogWogo, the boy is named Beckett Mancuso Chung. Beckett derives from the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, while the middle name, Mancuso, is a family name on Farr’s side.

Interestingly, the name Beckett is one that Freakonomics authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner predict will be among the most popular boys’ names of 2015. It’s also the name given by Conan O’Brien to his son recently, so it does seem like it’s starting to get hot.

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Baby names authors Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Satran are popping up all over at the moment, promoting their new book The Baby Names Bible: The Ultimate Guide By America’s Baby Naming Experts (winner of the self-aggrandizing book title award, 2007).

Here’s an interview they did with the Chicago Sun-Times about celebrity baby names. It actually contains some interesting trivia about how particular baby names were chosen, including David and Victoria Beckham’s Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz; the now-split Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe’s Ava; Nicholas Cage’s now boring Kal-El story; Tom Cruise and Katie Holme’s Suri, especially the pointy-nosed bit, which looks like they got from my posts; and the ever-fascinating Penn Jillette-Moxie Crimefighter saga.

One thing I didn’t know — Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale bought a hat with the name Kingston on it several years ago, while they were recording in Jamaica. They were planning that far ahead. That’s what I call being on top of your celebrity baby name planning.

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