God Awful They Must Be Joking Or Maybe They Hate Children Celebrity Baby Names 2008

We begin 2009 today, so I thought we’d start off with a little fun. After all, mommying is not all about mercury and lead and melamine! Sometimes it’s about tsk tsk tsking celebrities, many of whom are clearly eating too much tuna sushi when they pick their children’s names.

Would someone please tell the rich and the beautiful that human babies should not be given dog names? It’s not natural! Kthxbai.

So Jennifer Moss — founder and CEO of BabyNames.com — is Pea in the Podcast’s resident expert on baby naming. She polled 5,000 members of her website, and came up with the most God Awful celebrity baby names of 2008.

Let’s start with the girls….

Oh, Punky Brewster, What Were You Thinking?
Soleil Moon Frye and Jason Goldberg this year named their daughter Jagger Joseph Blue Goldberg. BabyNames.com members hated this name. A lot. At the risk of destroying my credibility as a mommy blogger, I will admit I think this name is not completely God Awful. I think it’s kinda cute. Just me. Oh, and Soleil and Jason.

The second and third most awful girls’ names of 2008 — according to BabyNames.com members — were Luisa Danbi Grier-Kim (David Alan Grier, Christine Kim) and Atalanta Baez (Carolina Herrera, Miguel Baez).

On to the boys!…

It’s A Jungle Out There!
At least if you’re Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz’s kid. His name is Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Yes, Mowgli. Yes, the boy from The Jungle Book. I can deal with “Bronx”. Maybe they’re big Yankees fans. But Mowgli? That’s God Awful.

The folks at BabyNames.com say that is the worst celebrity boy’s name of the year, followed by Sophocles Iraia Clement (Jermaine Clement, Miranda Manasiadis), and Barnaby Borstein Douglas (Alex Borstein, Jackson Douglas). Both God Awful.

However, Moss says, all in all, celebrities did pretty well this year in baby naming. Members picked Harlow Winter Kate (Nicole Richie, Joel Madden) as their favorite girls’ name, and Caleb James (Bo Bice, Caroline Bice) as their favorite among the boys’.

Moss says “Harlow Winter Kate is a glamorous name, without being too unusual. Caleb James is a solid, old-fashioned name—Biblical, but not overused.”

BabyNames.com’s complete list of good and bad celebrity baby names for 2008 can be found here.

Are you having trouble coming up with a “just perfect” name for your baby? Jennifer Moss has some great advice for you in our Pea in the Podcast Baby Names: What’s In A Name. Check it out!

-Bonnie