Max, the name of both the child hero and the young actor who plays him in Where The Wild Things Are, is one of the hottest boys’ names these days.

Max can stand on its own or may be a short form of the ancient Roman name Maximus, which means “greatest,” or of Maximilian or Maxwell.  It’s one of the down-to-earth cigar-chomping grandpa names last popular a hundred years ago and enjoying a huge revival now.  Like brothers Sam and Jake, Max is unpretentious and friendly but also sounds cool.

Celebrities led the way in launching the revival of the name, starting in the late 70s and early 80s.  Stars who are the parents of now-grown kids named Max include Dustin Hoffman, Henry Winkler, Steven Spielberg, and Nora Ephron & Carl Bernstein.

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Just when it seemed that the stormy seas of extreme celebrity baby names were calming down (you can see our comments on this at Celebrity Babies Blog), a new crop has come along  introducing a whole bunch of innovative choices, ranging from the ridiculous to the semi-sublime:

BARDOT (first name of David Boreanaz’s daughter) Following in the footsteps of Harlow and other  Hollywood sirens and sex kittens of the past(Dad Boreanaz admitted being inspired by a Brigitte Bardot poster), Bardot could easily fit in with the growing group of o-ending girls’ names: Juno, Lilo, Willow, etc.

BETSI (middle name of Ioan Gruffudd & Alice Evans’ daughter Ella).  Much to my surprise, I find this new take on an old name—I’m not usually a big fan of changing y’s to i’s— appealingly fresh, cute and perky.
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When Henry was chosen as the #1 favorite boy’s name on the collective 5-star lists of the nameberry community, I was somewhat surprised and yet somewhat not.  Because in many ways Henry is the perfect boy’s name—as classic and historic as James and John and William –yet with a quirkier edge that makes it seem modern, and even hip.

Henry has a lot going for it.  Let us count the ways:

HENRY IS POPULAR, WELL-LIKED, BUT NOT EPIDEMICALLY TRENDY.

At #78 on the Social Security list last year, Henry was given to fewer than 4,000 boys across the country.  It was much more commonly heard in the past, having been #10 in 1900, 12 in the 1910s, 18 in the twenties, 25 in the thirties, then dipping to a low of 146 in 1994, after which it started its edge back up.

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With the World Series fast approaching and the baseball season coming to a fever pitch,  the sports pages are filled with the names of players.  Irresistible  lists of names. So though I’m far from what anyone would call a dedicated sports fan, I’ve become mesmerized by the rosters of team players’ names.  After parsing those of all the major league teams, I have now made my picks of a favorite first name from each–my own personal MVPs.  You might like to do the same.

Oh, and a bonus for me–I finally see what’s behind the popularity of the boy’s name Jacoby–probably the last person to know.

Here they are:

ANDERSON  Hernandez  –  New York Mets

AUGIE  Ojeda  –  Arizona Diamondbacks

BOONE  Logan  –  Atlanta Braves

CASPER  Wells  –  Detroit Tigers

CHASE  Utley  –  Philadelphia Phillies

COLBY  Rasmus  –  St. Louis Cardinals

DEXTER  Fowler  –  Colorado Rockies

DMITRI  Young  –  Washington Nationals

ELVIS  Andrus  –  Texas Rangers

FELIX  Pie  –  Baltimore Orioles

FERNANDO  Perez  –  Tampa Bay Rays

GIO  Gonzalez  –  Oakland Athletics

HEATH Bell—San Diego Padres

JACOBY Ellsbury  –  Boston Red Sox

JENSEN  Lewis  –  Cleveland Indians

KAZUO  Matsui  –  Houston Astros

KENDRY  Morales  –  Los Angeles Angels

KIKO  Calero  –  Florida Marlins

LUCAS  May  –  Los Angeles Dodgers

MICAH  Hoffpauir  –  Chicago Cubs

OCTAVIO  Dotel  –  Chicago White Sox

OMAR  Aguilar  –  Milwaukee Brewers

ORLANDO  Cabrera  –  Minnesota Twins

OSIRIS Matos –  San Francisco Giants

ROBINZON  Diaz  –  Pittsburgh Pirates

ROMAN  Colon  –  Kansas City Royals

VERNON  Wells  –  Toronto Blue Jays

XAVIER  Nady  –  New York Yankees

YONDER  Alonso  –  Cincinnati Reds

Maybe they didn’t have voices then, but lots of the silent screen stars did have intriguingly exotic looks and equally exotic names–even if many of them were invented by studio publicists.  Theda Bara, for example, the quintessential vamp, was not the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor whose name was an anagram of Arab Death, as the PR people proclaimed to the public, but was actually Cincinnati-born Theodosia Goodman, daughter of a Jewish tailor. Likewise,  Nita Naldi’s real last name was Dooley, Olga Petrova was born Muriel Hardy and Alla Nazimova’s birth name was Miriam Leventon.

But real or concocted, these names–primarily short, with two-syllables and heavy on the vowels–still retain vestiges of that sultry  1900’s-1920’s glamour, and  could have  some vintage appeal today:

ALLA

ASTA

GRETA

ISA

JETTA

LEDA

LEILA

LINA

LITA

LOLA

LYA

LYDA

NEVA

NITA

OLGA

ORA

ORMI

POLA

RIA

THEDA

TORA

VALLA

VILMA

VOLA

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