Many parents — more and more, it seems — wait until the baby arrives to settle on a  name.  Some want to see what it looks like and try to gauge its incipient personality (not always easy), and some want to tie it into the circumstances of the baby’s birth–a practice seen in a number of earlier cultures.  This could be the season of arrival–Summer or Autumn–or the month, as in June or January, or the day of the week, as in Sunday Rose Kidman Urban (actually born on a Monday).

Another option is commemorating the time of day or night of the baby’s arrival.  There are any number of names associated with sun and moon gods and goddesses, as well as names whose meanings refer to day and night, stars, dawn, sun and moon,  in both western and  eastern cultures. Some of them worth considering are:

DAY NAMES

ADOUR — African, meaning born at dawn
AFTERNOON
ALBA –means dawn in Italian and Spanish
ALTAN — Turkish, meaning dawn
ANATOLE — French, meaning dawn
APOLLO –Greek sun god
AROON — Thai, meaning dawn
ASA –Japanese, born at dawn (in Hebrew it means healer)
AURORA –Roman goddess of dawn
CYMBELINE — Celtic, meaning sun lord
CYRUS –Persian, meaning sun
DAG/DAGMAR/DAGNY — Scandinavian, meaning day
DANICA — Slavic, meaning morning star
DAWN
DIA/DIAZ –Italian and Spanish for day
EARLY
ELIANA/ELIANE — in Greek, daughter of the sun (in Hebrew, God has answered)
ELIO/HELIO/HELIOS–related to the Greek sun god
EOS — Greek goddess of dawn
IOLA –Greek, meaning violet-covered dawn
ISHAAN –Hindu sun god
KALINDA –Hindi, meaning the sun
LARK — the bird that sings at dawn
MATIN — morning in French
MATUTA — Spanish, goddess of the morning
MORNING
NURU — Swahili, meaning born in daylight
ORIANA — like Aurora, means sunrise
PHOEBUS — another name for the sun god Apollo
RA –Egyptian sun god
RAVI — Hindu god of the sun
ROXANNE/ROXANA — Persian, meaning dawn
SAVITA — Hindi, meaning sun (among other meanings)
SABAH/SAHAR — Arabic, meaning morning
SAMSON — Hebrew, meaning sun
SHAHAR, Hebrew, meaning morning
SIRIA/SURYA –Hindi, meaning the sun (also the name of a sun god)
SOL/SOLANA –meaning the sun
SOLEIL — sun in French
SULIEN –Welsh, meaning sun
SUNNY/SUNSHINE
TALI — Hebrew, meaning dew
TARANA — meaning born during the day in (Hausa) African (also music in Persian)
THEA — Greek goddess of light and mother of the sun
ZARIA/ZARYA — Slavic, meaning morning star
ZORA– Slavic name meaning dawn
ZORAN –Serbian, meaning light of dawn

NIGHT NAMES

AJAMBO –African, meaning born in the evening
ALTAIR –the brightest star in the constellation Aquila
ANDROMEDA — a constellation
ANNIKKI — Finnish nighttime goddess
AQUILA — a constellation
ARTEMIS –Greek moon goddess
ASTA/ASTRA — meaning star
BADAR — Arabic, meaning full moon
CASSIOPEIA–a constellation
CHANDRA — Indian moon god
CYNTHIA — Greek, related to moon goddess Artemis
DELIA — another epithet of Greek moon goddess Aretemis
DEVA — Hindu moon goddess
DIANA — Roman goddess of the moon
DIMAS — Greek, meaning sunset
ESTELLE/ESTELLA/ESTRELLA –meaning star
ESTHER — Persian, meaning star
ETOILE — French word for star
HOSHI — Japanese, meaning star
ISIS — Egyptian goddess of the sky
IZAR –means star in Basque
KAMARIA –Swahili, meaning beauty of the moon
KOKO — Native American (Blackfoot), meaning night
LAILA/LEILA//LEYA/LILA –all relate to  night in Arabic
LILITH — night monster (uh-oh) in Jewish folklore
LIVANA — Hebrew, means lunar (or white)
LUNA — Italian for moon
MOON (as in Zappa)
NEOMA — Greek, meaning new moon
NISHA — Hindi, meaning night
NOVA — A star that shines very brightly (also means new and is the name of a PBS science show)
NYX — Greek, means night; name of the Greek goddess of the night
PHOEBE — another epithet for Greek moon goddess Artemis
QAMAR –Arabic, meaning moon
RAJANI — Hindi, meaning night
RAKA — Hindi, meaning full moon
RHIANNON — Welsh goddess of the moon
SELENE/SELENA — Greek goddess of the moon
SIDRA — means of the stars in Latin
STELLA — Latin for star
VEGA — falling star in Arabic

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.

Yesterday we got the news flash that Anne Heche named her son Atlas and last week we learned that Erykah Badu chose Mars for her baby girl. Do we smell the beginnings of a trendlet?

Yes,  some celebrity parents do seem to be intent on making little gods and goddesses–instant objects of worship– of their infants right from the get-go.  Names that were previously considered too powerful for a baby to bear (after all, Atlas did carry the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, and Mars was the Roman god of war) now seem to have descended from Mt. Olympus into the realm of mortal possibility.

Of course, Atlas and Mars aren’t the first mythic starbabies. Others include:

AURORA —   Nancy McKeon

CALLIOPE –  Patricia Arquette (middle name)

CASTOR –  James Hetfield

GAIA –  Emma Thompson

HERMES — Kelly Rutherford

ICARUS — Lucy Sykes (middle name)

JUNO –  Will Champion

LUNA –  Constance Marie

ORION –  Chris Noth

And there are lots of other names of ancient Greek and Roman gods, goddesses and muses that could work for a contemporary American baby, some of which are still commonly used in Greece, such as:

GODDESSES

APHRODITE

ARIADNE

ARTEMIS

ASTRA

ATALANTA

ATHENA

CERELIA

CLIO

DELIA

DEMETER

ELARA

JANA

LYSSA

MAIA

MINERVA

NIKE

PERSEPHONE

SELENE

TERRA

THALASSA

THALIA

THEA

VENUS

GODS

ACHILLES

ADONIS

AEOLUS

AGON

AJAX (beware the foaming cleanser)

APOLLO

AQUILO

ARES

CADMUS

HELIOS

JOVE

JUPITER

MERCURY

POSEIDON

SILVANUS

TRITON

VULCAN

ZEPHYR

ZEUS

Yesterday we looked at our list of names that peaked in 2007 and predicted general trends.  Today, we’re identifying those names we expect to be hearing a lot more of in the future.

Not included on this list are the trendy choices like Addison and Aiden that everybody expects to see at the top of the pop chart.  We’re also setting aside those 2007 favorites we expect to see heading downward – Kaylee, for instance – along with names mentioned in yesterday’s post.

More interesting are the unusual names and the unexpected classics we see peaking on the 2007 list but predict will rise yet again in 2008 and will be around for years to come.  Many of these names sound unusual enough now, but BE WARNED: Most are destined to get a lot more popular.  Those choices:

Girls

Akira
Alani
Amari
Amelia
Annabelle
Arabella
Aria
Athena
Aubrey
Azaria
Bella
Brielle
Cadence
Camila
Chloe
Claire
Dahlia
Delilah
Dulce
Eden
Elle
Emery
Hadley
Iliana
Jocelyn
Kamari
Kinsley
Lexie
Liana
Lucia
Lyric
Maeve
Malaki
Malia
Melina
Naomi
Paisley
Piper
Saniya
Sarai
Sariah
Tessa
Valentina
Willow
Zaniya
Zara
Zariah
Zoey

Boys

Andres
Ari
Aryan
Asher
Atticus
Beckett
Boston
Brady
Braxton
Brycen
Case
Cohen
Cooper
Corbin
Cruz
Davin
Daxton
Declan
Drake
Easton
Emmanuel
Enzo
Ezekiel
Fabian
Finn
Finnegan
Gideon
Grayson
Hudson
Isai
Jacoby
Jameson
Jeremiah
Johan
Josiah
Judah
Killian
Kingston
Lincoln
Luca
Madden
Marcelo
Matias
Maxim
Micah
Nash
Nikolai
Nolan
Owen
Rhys
Santiago
Sawyer
Slade
Soren
Titus
Wyatt

Either

Keagan
London
Memphis
Nery
Parker
Phoenix
Quinn
Rowan
Teagan
Zion

It’s way too soon to know how this generation of unusually named starbabies–the Bronx Mowglis and Pilot Inspektors and Moxie CrimeFighters–will feel about their names as they move on into schoolyards and workplaces, but if we can gain any insight by looking back at the first generation of weirdly named celebrity kids–those born in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, there’s a good chance they may choose to leave those names behind.

One of the first of these was america (deliberately spelled with a small ‘a’) Hoffman, son of sixties activist/protester Abbie Hoffman.  As soon as he could, america opted to become Alan.  Three of the wackily-named kids of the past were uncomfortable enough with their names to change them not once but twice.  Zowie Bowie became first Joey and then Duncan (Jones), saying that he actually loves his unusual moniker, but wanted to step outside the shadow of his famous father.  One of Mia Farrow’s daughters morphed from Dylan to Eliza to Malone, and one of her sons from Satchel to Seamus to Ronan.

When Chastity Bono (named after the title of a movie made by her father Sonny) used to complain about her name when she was young, her father was known to say “Be thankful we didn’t name you Dweezel.”  Which brings us to the Zappas: Moon Unit, Dweezil (whose birth certificate name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid), Ahmet Enuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.  Despite merciless mocking over the years, the Zappas have steadfastly held fast to their names (Dweezil making that his legal name), and Moon has repeatedly stated that she’s glad not to have a common, ordinary name.

But they are the exceptions, even with the slightly younger generation.  British rocker Bob Geldof’s daughters Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa (sister of Fifi Trixiebelle, Little Pixie and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily) has declared that she hates ridiculous names in general and that her “weird name has haunted me all my life.”  And even teenaged Tallulah (not really such a bizarre name at all) Willis recently asked her dad Bruce to announce on David Letterman’s show that she is already ready to change her name–to Lula.