The Moppet Show: Celebrity Children Names

Jun 12, 2009 Author: tanya | Filed under: Advice, Droolery, Foolery, sweet

toosweet Let’s face it, it’s hard to come up with good names for your kids. You might go out of your way to give your child a unique name only to have 5 other kids with the same name in his or her kindergarten class. A few years ago, no one would have said Isabella was common but now the playground is teeming with Bellas and Ellas. Isabella (or a version thereof) is the new Jennifer and Ava is the new Stephanie…

The trick is to come up with a name everyone involved is happy with, that isn’t too common -but that is also easy to pronounce and spell. My own pet peeve is ‘unique’ spellings of common names – the Jenyfurs, etc – I’ve always thought it just makes it look like your parents can’t spell. Is your child really going to thank you after the thousandth time they’ve had to correct the spelling of their name?

Celebrities seem to be be very challenged in this area – I guess their approach is different because they know that little “Rebel” or “Free” will never have to put their name on a resume or seek employment in the real world. A world where studies have shown that any name that is too hard to pronounce, or even just too ethnic – means less interviews…

Well, here at Celebrity Icing we like to celebrate our favorites, so rather than making fun of all the goofy names selected for celebrity spawn we thought we’d spend some time featuring some of the names we like!

Beckett is the bee’s knees

Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher named their son Beckett and their daughter Bailey (presumably before Grey’s Anatomy went on the air…). The name Beckett means ‘Bee Cottage’ which is rather cute and inspires one to all sorts of nursery room decorating ideas. Beckett may have been named after the famous Irish writer or (and I hope it’s this one) Scott Bakula’s character from Quantum Leap. What child wouldn’t want to be named after the mysterious and adorable time traveler?

quantum

Coco is classy yet cute

Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette named their daughter Coco (rumor: after Courtney Cox). This name meets all of my criteria: if you see it in writing, you immediately know how to pronounce it – yet, at the same time, it’s very rare. According to thinkbabynames.com it is originally from Spain and is the short form of Soccoro (which means ‘lover of soccer’? no, just kidding…). It is cute, yet with a classy hint of Coco Chanel. My only fear would be that people might not take my daughter seriously – but that won’t be a problem if she turns out to be funny like her dad or a strong personality like her mom…

coco

Tallulah springs to mind

Bruce Willis and Demi More AND Simon LeBon and Yasmin Parvaneh both named a daughter Tallulah. This name means “leaping waters” in the Choctaw language (behindthename.com) or “jumping water” (babynamewizard.com). There is a waterfall named Tallulah in Georgia, where famous Tallulah Bankhead came from. It’s a beautiful sounding name and very rare. According to the namevoyager at babynamewizard.com – it’s never been in the top 1,000 names in any decade on record. (In contrast, Gertrude was ranked #24 in the 1890’s and Isabella was #2 in 2007.) Tallulah Bankhead was actually notorious for her promiscuous behavior, boozing, drugging, and is actually thought to be the inspiration for 101 Dalmation’s Cruella Deville so I’m going with the idea that these children were named after the waterfall! Then again, so many parents named their daughters “Paris” in 2004, that it is ranked #156 in popularity – so nothing can surprise me anymore… yuck…