Nicole Richie had a baby on Friday. Never one to be outdone, Christina Anguliera had her own baby on Friday. The rumoured name of Christina’s baby? Kevin Jon Bratman. The name of Nicole’s baby? Harlow Winter Kate Madden. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not the same.

Celebrities are not ones to shy away from things that are controversial or non-mainstream; scientology, pulling hair out to prevent baldness, the list could go on, and baby names are no exception to this bucking of the mainstream.

This is no way a recent phenomenon, the Zappa children are infamous for thir names Dweezil, Moon Unit, Adhmd Emukha Rodan, and Diva Muffin. But it doesn’t stop there, recently Nicolas Cage named his son Kal-El(Superman’s birth name), and who can forget David Bowie’s son Zowie Bowie.

What do the kids think about all this? Zowie Bowie had had enough of his name by age 12 and asked to be referred to as “Joey”. Dandelion Richards has started referring to her self as Angela, and Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof has this to say, “I hate ridiculous names. My weird name has haunted me all my life.”

This oddity is of course not restricted to celebrities, a couple in New Zealand has recently named their son Superman(not as majestic as Kal-El if you ask me). Nor is strange naming restricted to babies, with a rapper in Ohio recently changing his name to “The” Dan Miller Experience.

Hospitals and even courts are fighting back for the rights of babies everywhere however. The baby named Superman? The couple originally tried to name him 4Real, which the government registry in New Zealand turned down because the name contained a digit. An Italian court late last year forced a child named Friday to be renamed because of an administrative norm that bars parents from giving “ridiculous or shameful” first names to children. Dweezil Zappa? His birth name is Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa because the hospital refused to allow him to be named Dweezil.

What hope do these kids have then? Well a story ran by CNN.com on January 1st reported that in a recent poll of 1,219 mothers conducted by BabyCenter.com, 10% considered changing their baby’s name. Interestingly the article also had this to say,

“Today, there’s this perception that naming a child is almost like naming a product — there’s this huge national drive now to not be like anyone else,” says Laura Wattenberg, author of “The Baby Name Wizard” and founder of the blog BabyNameWizard.com.

So, these babies are like brands, but 10% of parents have considered a different brand when naming their baby. Most of these parents that consider changing their baby’s name don’t, but the CNN article does have a couple of anecdotal stories about parents who did end up changing their baby’s name. We can only hope these celebrities end up being another anecdote.

If you’re really interested in this phenomenon check out here, and here for a couple lists of interesting, odd, and sometimes normal names celebrities give their children.

Edit: Christina’s baby was actually born Saturday and is named Max Liron Bratman.

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