Stupid Baby Names Reaching a Fever Pitch

Hey ladies who are currently pregnant or may become pregnant and significant others, there is not a contest to see who can name their child the dumbest thing. If there were such a contest Gwyneth Paltrow would have already won it when she named her kid 'Apple.' It's getting harder and harder to look at people with a straight face when they tell me they named their child something like 'Maize' or 'Cerulean.' Wait, you named your child after a name for corn no one uses or a crayon color you only get with the really big packs of crayons? Why has naming a child something offbeat moved from mere isolated incidents to an out and out trend? The line is being blurred on what a normal name even is, and I really don't see a reversal in this trend. I'm not saying every boy should be named 'John' and every girl named 'Elizabeth', but 'Toshiba' is crossing a line. You may be wondering why I have a picture of Anna Paquin in this post. Well, besides sexing this place up a bit it is because of this Entertainment Weekly article in which Vlada Gelman discusses the recent spike in parents naming their girls 'Sookie,' the name of Paquin's character on her HBO series True Blood. It doesn't matter how much you like a television show, you don't name your kid after a character on one. Name your pet rabbit 'Sookie,' not your child whom you love and want to look out for. Parents are supposed to feel an obligation to protect their offspring, not make a joke by naming them after a flash-in-the-pan excuse to see some violence and boobs on HBO's Sunday night lineup.
I would give parents who are mulling over names like 'Tangerine' or 'Letter Opener' the traditional warning that naming your child something stupid may get them beat up or made fun of on the playground, but with the proliferation of weird names the kids who have normal names are going to have sore arms from all of the punching. If parents are really having a hard time with names you could just open up the Bible. Nehemiah is a kick ass name.