Umm, what was that name again?

If you haven't come across funky names of newborns in the recent past, you probably haven't been social or have been avoiding gossip channels and newspapers altogether because all I see is them! There are those who differentiate names with an additional 'a' or 'e' or by taking away a 'y' and the likes. Then there are those who use foreign names and shockingly enough, there’s also a new category that does not shy away from using proper nouns as names. The fad is all pervasive across states and stratas, across industries (hello bollywood!) and individuals and across literacy levels.

We've come a long way from the days when Sanskrit names were the norm. Plebeians like us probably got inspired by celebrities or just by traveling around the world. Lately, Russian and Spanish names aren’t uncommon even in the interiors of India. Here in the US, celebrities have taken 'unique' to the next names. Check out some interesting, odd and downright crazy celebrity baby names: Arthur Ashe's daughter is called Camera, Christie Brinkley's girl is called Sailor Lee, Cher's daughter is called Chastity (!!!), Barbara Hershey's son is called Free, Penn Jillette's daughter is called Moxie CrimeFighter, Shannyn Sossamon's son is called Audio Science and Frank Zappa's daughter is called Moon Unit.

I’ve had no luck figuring out potential thought processes of other people behind such life altering decisions. How many kids’s share of teasing, for instance, would Chastity or Free or Audio Science go through during their school years? Kids are brutal. It’s public knowledge. Why then in their sane minds would parents venture into these things? The poor kid might hold a grudge forever.

It isn’t just people names. Video games are known for some of the craziest names ever: Zeitgeist, Um Jammer Lammy and PenPen TriIcelon just to name a few. Oh and Sony Ericson just launched two new phones in India: Xperia and Vivaz.

Let's face it guys. Our generation counts on auto spell check even for one liner emails. And we have the attention span of a gnat. So good luck to us trying to use these names or hearing them out and remembering them. But we live in a world that’s constantly evolving and making progress. So next time you hear someone’s kid named as Go-Kart Massacre or Kosher Raccoon or Silly Sudoku, don’t fret. We’ll just have to embrace them and move on.

As someone once said, life was much simpler when blackberry and apple were just fruits!