Brand Names ... for Kids?

WASHINGTON - Baby, baby. What's in a name?

Years ago, it used to be people named their kids after religious figures and saints.

Or they named them after dad or grandma or mom's favorite aunt.

Forget Mike or John.

Today, the latest trend in baby names takes pop-culture to a new level, naming kids after consumer products.

Yes, parents are naming their children after cars, clothing, hair dye and even canned peas.

Infiniti. Celica. Armani. Timberland. Nautica. L'Oreal. Del Monte.

Those are some of the names that Cleveland Evans, a psychology professor at Nebraska's Bellevue University and a member of the American Name Society, found when he studied Social Security records for the year 2000.

According to a web article on World Magazine's site, Evans also found two separate parents, one in Texas and one in Michigan, who named their sons ESPN after the sports cable network.

If that's not bad enough.

One WTOP staffer has talked with teen girls named Nonchalant and Unnecessary.

Imagine introducing yourself at a job interview with those names.

And, no kidding, another staffer has even heard of one named Syphilis.

Boy, you can bet she'll have a hard time getting a date.

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