There’s no doubt that middle names have been taking on increasing  importance in the hearts and minds of  baby namers.  They’ve stepped up from the inconsequential connectives –especially for girls–of a generation or two ago to full co-starring roles on the birth certificate.  For many, it’s a welcome opportunity to honor a family member, preserve a maiden name, or use as a solid alternative for their child to possibly choose to use later on.

But for others, it’s place to be whimsical, to salute a creative hero, to use a favorite word or nature name they wouldn’t dare to put in first place.  For examples of how this works, we need only to look to the stars, those beacons of extreme–if not bizarre– baby naming.  So here are some nature, namesake, word and lovey-dovey endearment middle names they have used, followed by the name of the celebrity parent who chose it and their child’s first name:

NATURE NAMES

BEAR  (Anthony Kiedis’s Everly)

CRICKET  (Amy Locane’s Paige)

HUCKLEBERRY  (Kimberly Williams & Brad Paisley’s William)

PINE  (Simon Le Bon’s Tallulah)

PLUM  (Moon Unit Zappa’s Matilda)

RAIN  (Brooke Burke & David Charvet’s Heaven)

RAINBOW  (Jamie Oliver’s Petal Blossom)

TULIP  (Rebecca Romijn & Jerry O’Connell’s Charlie Tamara)

NAMESAKES–real and fictional

COLTRANE  (Natascha McElhone’s Rex)

HENDRIX  (Donnie Wahlberg’s Elijah)

ICARUS  (Lucy Sykes’ Titus Jasper)

KAFKA  (Tommy Lee Jones‘ Victoria)

KIPLING  (Kim Raver’s Leo)

MADONNA  (Geri Halliwell’s Bluebell)

MARS  (Sofia Coppola’s Romy)

MOWGLI  (Ashlee Simpson & Pete Wentz’s Bronx)

ZHIVAGO  (Nia Long’s Massai) (more…)

There are some celebrity kids’ names that are immediately embraced by other parents and become instant hits. Take Kingston, for example, the name chosen for personal reasons relating to the city in Jamaica by Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale: it had all the ingredients to make it a success– accessibility, likeability, a strong, familiar sound with regal overtones, plus extremely high-profile parents.

Another name with similar qualities is Maddox, the first son of Angelina Jolie, which first entered the popularity lists in 2003 and has been steadily climbing ever since. A few recent names—Honor (Warren), Clementine (Hawkes), Seraphina (Affleck), and Harlow (Madden) spring to mind—were direct hits, and seem sure to spread.

On the other side of the coin are those that were just as instantly rejected as too weird for everyday consumption: the Ikhyds, Banjos, Bandits, Pumas, Pirates and Peanuts.

Some names that were greeted at first as too audacious have now become accepted. Romeo, second son of Victoria and David Beckham, had been considered too melodramatically Shakespearean until it became associated with a cute blonde crew cut and a British accent. The name of Romeo’s brother Brooklyn also produced a few guffaws when it was announced—but then other parents started to separate the two syllables into Brook and Lyn, gradually cancelling out the New-York-accented borough association and transforming it into a pretty name for a girl: now Brooklyn ranks in the Top 50 of girls’ names. That other New York borough name, Bronx, however, got an instant thumbs down.

Of course a lot of it is about exposure. The fabulous name of the kid of some C-list actress who has never once been seen in the pages of People or viewed on Access Hollywood probably isn’t gonna make it.

On the other hand, names that are paraded before the public daily, like Kelly Ripa’s Lola and Joaquin can’t help but be noticed and emulated. Teri Hatcher named her daughter Emerson in 1997, but it wasn’t until Hatcher hit it big with Desperate Housewives that the name really took off—as has her co-star Marcia Cross’s much-photographed twin’s Eden.

So which names have definitely been given a celebritized bounce? The leader of the pack is—hands down—Ava, used by no fewer than a dozen stars, most notably Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe in 1999, and which is now the fifth most popular name in America.

Some others that have been boosted by a celebrity connection are:

AVERY for girls

BECKETT

CRUZ

EDEN

EMERSON

FINLEY for girls

HARPER for girls

JADEN

JOAQUIN

KINGSTON

LOLA

MADDOX

MILO

PAX

ROMEO

RYDER

SHILOH

VIOLET

ZAHARA

There ‘s also a more recent contingent of starbaby names that seem to have the potential for becoming more widely accepted, including:

ALICE

ANNISTON

ASHBY

BECKETT

CLEMENTINE

DASHIELL

HARLOW

HONOR

KENZO

MAGNUS

MATILDA

ROMY

TRUE

VIVIENNE

We all know how the media likes to jump on every new ‘weird’ starbaby name, predicting dire consequences down the road for the likes of poor little Moxie CrimeFighter, Pilot Inspektor, Bronx Mowgli, and Apple. Well, only time will tell how these kids will actually meet that particular challenge as they grow up, but it might be instructive to look at the previous generation of oddball-named celebrity babes who are now young adults and see how they’ve handled it–which ones think these names have made them feel special and which have felt damaged, how many have held on to their bizarre appellations and how many have dropped them.

CHASTITY BONO. Mom Cher used the name of dad Sonny’s film “Chastity,” but though her daughter has hung onto it, she has said “most of the time it’s been a pain.” Seems when she complained about it, Sonny would say “Be thankful we didn’t name you Dweezil.” Which brings us to:

DWEEZIL ZAPPA. When the hospital refused to  register this name, the birth certificate read Ian Donald Calvin Euclid–the names of Zappa’s then-bandmates. But Dweezil, always called Dweezil, later made it his legal name. Older sister MOON UNIT has frequently insisted that she likes having an unusual name like Moon rather than something more ordinary, and presumably their other siblings AHMET EMUUKHA RODAN and DIVA THIN MUFFIN PIGEEN agree.

PEACHES HONEYBLOSSOM MICHELLE ANGEL VANESSA GELDOF, daughter of rocker-activist Bob, has bemoaned “My weird name has haunted me all my life.”  Wouldn’t be surprised if her sisters FIFI TRIXIEBELLE, PIXIE and HEAVENLY HIRAANI TIGER LILY–exhibitionists all–felt the same way.

SATCHEL FARROW. The son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen was born Satchel Ronan O’Sullivan Farrow, named for one of his father’s baseball heroes, Satchel Paige. Following a bitter custody battle, he became known as Seamus, and now, having been a prodigy who graduated from college at 15  and become  a human rights activist and journalist, he has settled on the name Ronan Seamus Farrow.  His sister also took three steps, going from DYLAN to ELIZA to MALONE.

ZOWIE BOWIE. Like Satchel-Seamus-Ronan, has had multiple identities. He was born Zowie Duncan Heywood Bowie and, although he says he loves his distinctive moniker, he first called himself Joey Bowie, and then changed his name to Duncan Jones, saying he didn’t want to be in the shadow of famous dad David.

STRAWBERRY SAROYAN. When fruitily-named Apple Martin was born in 2004, the granddaughter of William Saroyan gave a long interview about her name to the New York Times . Since she grew up among kids named Cream, Wonder and Raspberry, she didn’t exactly feel like the odd girl out, and after some ups and downs, now definitely sees the benefits of her unusual name.

TALLULAH BELLE WILLIS, sister of RUMER GLENN and SCOUT LARUE, though still a young teen, has already had dad Bruce announce on the Letterman show that she plans to legally change her name to (nickname) Lula.

So take heed, Ikhyd and Nakoa-Wolf–you might wind up deciding you’d rather be Ike or Nat.

 Ooh-la-la.  Tra-la-la.  What sounds could be more lilting, more rhythmic, more energetic than these?  This is surely one reason why parents–both celebrities and civilians– are flocking to names with double L-starting syllables, such as:

LILY.  This is the most classic of the bunch, a lovely flower name that has re-blossomed in the last several year, and g iven some modern celeb cred by singer Lily Allen.  We’ve counted at least eight recent starbaby Lilys–and that doesn’t even count Lou Diamond Phillips‘ LILI, Chris O’Donnell’s LILLY and Johnny Depp’s LILY-ROSE.  The more formal versions, LILLIAN and LILIANA are also showing signs of rebirth.

LILAC is another floral option, fresher and newer sounding than both Lily and the similarly-hued Violet; it was picked for his daughter by Donovan Leitch.

The sexy LOLA (though several degrees lower on the thermometer than LOLITA) is also on the rise.  First brought to prominence as the nickname of Madonna daughter Lourdes, it’s now heard almost daily on TV via the daughter of Live with Regis and Kelly’s Kelly Ripa.  It’s also been bestowed on their little girls by Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen, Chris Rock, Jennie Garth, Lisa Bonet, Carnie Wilson and several other celebs–all of whom ignored  the warning of the song “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets.”

LILA is a relatively sedate member of this group, even if it did start life as a diminutive of the seductive biblical Delilah.  But don’t confuse it with the variously spelled LAILAs, LEYLAs, LAYLAs and LEILAs out there.

And then there’s the Disneyfied LILO, sure to be a favorite with baby’s older siblings.

LULU is the high-stepping showgirl of the group,  a member of the Coco-Gigi-Fifi contingent (plus, of course, the irascible comics-book Little Lulu.

Looking for something a little more unusual?  We like the charming LILOU, now very hot in France; some other names in La-La land include LALA itself, LALIA, LALITA, LALLY, the Hawaiian LEILANI, LELIA, LILIA (a fictional character in The Ten Commandments movie, LILITH , LULA and LILLA.

And even rarer: LILEAS/LILIAS — the Scottish version of Lily, and LALAGE– a classical name, pronounced lal-a-ghee, heard both in the ancient poetry of Horace and the John Fowles novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

By the way, I also have some thoughts about the oo part of oo-la-la. Stay tooned

Okay, I’m going to come right out and say it: There are now officially enough little girls with the middle name Rose.

I can hear the screams of protest and wails of anguish already.  But Rose is my grandmother’s name! Rose goes perfectly with my favorite first name!  I’ve been planning to use the middle name Rose forever!

Well, go ahead, then.  It’s a perfectly lovely name, warm and feminine yet not overly assertive, making the ideal bridge between first name and last.

But so many thousands of parents have used it over the past decade that it’s become the Ann, the Marie, the Sue of the new millennium.  Consider the celebrity babies alone with the middle name Rose:

AIDAN ROSE – Faith Daniels

ALABAMA GYPSY ROSE – Drea de Matteo & Shooter Jennings

BRIGHTON ROSE – Jon Favreau

CATHERINE ROSE – Cheryl Hines

DOLLY REBECCA ROSE — Rebecca Romijn & Jerry O’Connell

EMERSON ROSE – Teri Hatcher

ESTHER ROSE – Ewan McGregor

JOHNNIE ROSE – Melissa Etheridge

LAEL ROSE – Tamia & Grant Hill

LUCKY ROSE – Cedric the Entertainer

MAGGIE ROSE – Jon Stewart

SERAPHINA ROSE – Jennifer Garner & Ben Affleck

Sylvester Stallone gave all THREE of his young daughters Rose as a middle name.

What we’re saying: Enough Roses already, at least in the middle.  In fact, Rose and Rosa and Rosamund and Rosemary and Rosalia are far from over-exposed as first names, so a fresher move might be to use one of them in first place and choose something with more individual character as a middle name.

Do you agree?  Tell us what you think: