The celebrity baby name revolution

Apparently some celebrities just don’t get enough attention so they look for more by giving their babies strange if not really dumb names.

Sunday, January 15, 2012
Jay-Z and Beyonce are the latest celebrities to chose a rare name for the newly born child. Net Photo

Apparently some celebrities just don’t get enough attention so they look for more by giving their babies strange if not really dumb names.  Perhaps they think they are being clever but in actual sense they are sentencing their kids to a lifetime of ridicule.

They have to suffer with these names until they are older (and smart enough) to change them. I mean what happened to the good old meaningful and actually really great names? I (and possibly most people) would take a kid called Jacob far more seriously than say…Pilot Inspektor! Seriously?

That, my people, happens to be the name of the star of the series My Name Is Earl, actor Jason Lee’s son. He was without a doubt very funny in the series but then decided to take his humour to another level when he named his son Pilot. Obviously comedy has its limits too!

Some people must either never be allowed to have children or if not, never be allowed to name them! Take Sylvester Stallone for example. You’d think that in all his days of living (and let’s face it, the man is not very young) he would have come across some real names but no! Mr. Rambo himself found it fit to name his child Sage Moonblood – maybe it was inspired by all the blood from the guys he smashed in Rambo –who knows?

So God says we should forgive those who sin against us and that we should honour our parents and so forth. But that might be a bit of a trick if my parents woke up in the morning and called me Audio Science. What am I? An experiment?  For Pete’s sake, throw me away or hand me over to the neighbours if you loathe me that much! Actress Shannyn Sossamon, who even barely qualifies as a celebrity tortured her kid with this name but I suppose she got the spotlight she truly wanted, didn’t she?

I suspect that to stand out these days you have to be truly outrageous. I mean why else would someone name their kids Moon Unit and Diva Thin Muffin?  I suppose its okay to laugh because some of these names are just downright hilarious! The late Frank Zappa (rest his funny soul) must have walked into a rocket (or out of space) and a bakery on the same day and figured out the perfect names for his kids. He has two other kids called Dweezil and Ahmet. No doubt he was funny but it’s really not cool to saddle your kid with a goofy name just so you can chuckle every time you see the birth certificate.

Jermaine Jackson might have been a star with the Jackson Five but that was ages ago. What right does he have now to jump back into people’s lives, boring them with baby names like Jermajesty? It’s cool to want to be unique but hey, play around with your own name. This brings me to his brother Michael. His parents were courteous enough to name him Michael and he painfully names his kid Blanket? He was troubled alright, but all he had to do was ask his mum to name the poor kid if he wasn’t up for it.

I love Gwyneth Paltrow. She is just a really great and really gorgeous actress. What I don’t like however was her decision to name her daughter Apple! Seriously what was she thinking? It’s like she went into labour, asked for an apple and out popped the baby. On an episode of Oprah back in 2004, she tried to explain the name. There were a lot of ‘ums’, and ‘Okays’ and more ‘ums’ in her explanation which basically came down to nothing. Obviously Gwyneth has no idea why she named her baby Apple either!

Seeing as we Africans like copying everything the West does, (well at least almost everything), please Oh please do not be tempted to name your baby anything of the sort. Let your child grow up without worrying about being teased. Nothing kills a child’s esteem more than not fitting in. And trust me; with a name like Audio Science, they might as well be home schooled!

rachelgaruka@yahoo.co.uk