Babies born in 2013 have some of the worst names ever
December 10, 2013 1:54PM
WENDY TUOHY, Opinion
IT MAY just be that our quest for a laugh is now extending to how we name our kids, but I fear perhaps not.
If the US parenting website BabyCentre 's list of baby name trends for 2013 is anything to go by, we are taking our desire to be noticed - and have our kids noticed - very far indeed.
Exhibit A: the names Cheese, Butterbean, Fairy ... and Phone were on it.
Yes, people are calling their newborns Phone, presumably because they want to name their new child after something they love as much as life itself.
But Cheese? Seriously?
Yes, apparently. Oh yes, and Panda. And also a bunch of girls' names inspired by the world's favourite pop diva: 'Beyoncee', 'Beyounce', 'Breyonce', and even 'Veyonce'.
And how is a child named "Blip" supposed to answer the question "I wonder if I was really wanted by Mum and Dad" - unless it's Blip as in, just a little Blip on the ultrasound scan and not "blip" in the contraception regime.
The good news for Australian kids though is that on their whole, parents didn't buy heavily into the nutty name trend.
BabyCentre reports the most popular girls' name was Charlotte (which has been in the top 10 for the last six years), with Ava at number two (up from 20th last year).
New girls' names to hit the top 40 include a pretty traditional bunch; Ivy, Alice, Georgia, Madeline, Holly, Indiana, Poppy and Harper (the latter two probably due to the Poppy Oliver and Harper Beckham).
Girls' names with "v" in them were also big: think Olivia, Eva, Evie and Evelyn. And names such as Sarah, Molly, Savannah, Hayley, Mackenzie and Abby all slid out of the Top 50, along with Maddison and Addison.
Boys' names trending included Oliver, Jack and Jackson - though the celebrity embrace of names with the letter "x" in them meant there were plenty of creative Jaxxsons.
Newly popular boys' names include Levi, Leo, Zach, Archie, Tyler, Elijah and Hayden. Thankfully, no Cheese here. Or Ajax, Kiwi, Danish, Egypt, Jag and Rocket - all noted by the site's US parent as used by parents in 2013.
Then again, at least none of those is quite so bad as the name Butt, noted by BabyCentre's list in 2010, Hotdog (2012), Poopy (also 2010), or Swag, which hit the radar in 2012.
Time magazine points out that at least "Twerk" and "Selfie" didn't make the list. Thank the Lord.
But as one dry wit on The Perch Facebook page asked, what on earth is left for these families to name their pets? Oh yes, probably Jake, Max and Toby.