The Sheila Variations

Leonid...wha? Carlos who? What movies where THEY in? Why would we care about some D-listers who don't even have a new holiday hit coming out?

Sheesh, Sheila. I just don't get you sometimes.

Carlos Gutierrez hasn't been in a hit since the late 70s when he made that movie about race car drivers in the deserts of Patagonia. So he is off my radar. Kuchma, though, has been rising up through the indie film circuit, and he is definitely one to watch. He's no Julia Roberts, though.

Holy crap! Julia Roberts gave birth? My whole life perspective has changed. It's a new day. A new WORLD.

Emily, I know. It's going to take some time to adjust to the new order of things.

Julia, dude, we need to talk.

Do you hate these sweet babies? Have the weeks of forced bedrest which kept you from promoting "Ocean's 12" made you resent the newest Moders? What other reason could there be for naming them HAZEL and PHINEAS?

Lisa -

We can take heart that she did not name one of them Apple like another celeb we all know.

Wouldn't it be funny if Phineas actually *did* go around the world in 80 days when he grows up?

Uh, not really.

I think all the pregnant women in Hollywood are trying to top each other with the weirdest baby names.

I think Apple is still winning. At least Hazel and Phineas are actual NAMES of PEOPLE, not just random nouns.

I'm expecting the next celeb to name their kid something like BR549.

Or perhaps THX 1138, Lisa - for all those George Lucas fans out there.

Pete,
For all of the glory and fun the original Star Wars brought to my childhood, it wouldn't be a half bad idea to name a kid after him, but I don't think they'd enjoy going through life called "Dickhead".

Yeah, I have tremendous scorn for such "normal" names as Mary or John ... I am going to go the "random noun" route and name my child Chicken Caesar Salad with Dressing on the Side.

Mitchell - are you out there? Do you remember our old STUPID JOKE about just this thing?

"Yes, Mr. Sling-back Pump is on line 2..."

"Hello, yes, Mr. String-of-Pop-Pearls is waiting for you in conference room 1..."

"Would you like me to set up a meeting for you with Mr. Tsunami?"

red, are you sure you didn't turn the "Filter Out Meaningful" button on when you signed up for these news alerts?

And as for weird celeb names - well, I LIKE Phineas as a name, but I see its impracticality. And giving the kid Walter as a middle name - well, I guess Walt works sort of marginally, but I thought the rule was if you gave your kid a "weird" first name, you gave them a "conventional" middle name so they could use that in school.

Hazel for a girl is marginally better, except I keep thinking of that old sitcom about the maid.

I also like the male names Theophilus and Algernon but I wouldn't be giving either of those to any male baby.

I think the weirdest and most troubling though is the family who supposedly put the "naming rights" to their kid up on e-bay. Or the parents who name their kids after some commercial brand. Or after the model of the car in which the kid was conceived, as the old joke goes...

if I ever have kids (unlikely) they are getting their great-granparents' names:
Joseph, Charlotte, Thomas, Dorothy. Sort of old-fashioned but also names you can imagine "real" people as having.

ricki:

hahahaha!! I finally signed up for another Breaking News service which is much better - but I do find the CNN ones too amusing to give up. It's ridiculous. The other Breaking News email gives me the earthquakes, the revolutions, the elections ... and then I get celeb births from CNN - or Scott Peterson updates. "Scott Peterson wiped his ass just now. More to come." I mean, whatEV.

Hazel isn't too bad a name although it reminds me of Watership Down. Not too bad a thing.

Your great-grandparents names are good good stuff. Solid, old-fashioned, but lovely.

I lean, as always, towards naming the future kids Irish names. I love the name Declan. I love Ciaran. I love Moira. Just lovely lovely names, I think.

Ah names, names. We did a post last year about the scary names people are coming up with for their kids: Armani and Camry, Disney and Darvon (yes, Darvon).

My brother tells me there's some unfortunate out there whose official name is M@, which is pronounced "Matt." Alphabetize that, why dontcha.

Darvon??? Eu.

Oh, and about Theophilus, mentioned earlier ... it is a cool name although it does remind me, uneasily, of something I took for a yeast infection once.