Kids lose when celeb moms play name game
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

``You've got to scream the name, as if you were calling the kid in from the playground, and that's how you know if it's good,'' a pregnant friend told me a while back.
     She opened an imaginary window and bellowed a girl's name. ``It's pretty, right?''
     I was thinking about the yelling method of christening a child after learning that Julia Roberts not only had her twins, but had named them Phinnaeus Walter and Hazel Patricia. Surely, Julia couldn't have practiced shouting those clinkers across her Beverly Hills back yard. What could possibly be the standard celebrities use for determining a name's value?
     How it will look in bold text on a future cover of People, denying a rumor about marital woes? Would it work on a jar of tomato sauce, or a perfume line? Will there be three other kids at the Beverly Hills pre-school also named Brooklyn or Banjo or Integrity, thereby setting up the dreaded last initial situation?
     As news of Julia's twins swirled in a media maelstrom storm around me, I wondered whether celebrity parents choose more whacko names than civilian parents, or if it just seems that way because stars' offspring get more attention than all the Guitars and Kiwis born to nobodies.
     Linda Rosenkrantz, a co-author of ``Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana,'' seemed like a good person to ask.
     ``I think they're more adventurous than most people,'' she said. ``They are people who like to draw attention to themselves. They live in an environment where everything goes. And their kids are not going to be teased in the way someone in Detroit might be.''
     Rosenkrantz, a woman who loves a good name discussion, took a look at Hazel and Phinnaeus. Once you get past the image of the opinionated sitcom maid, she said, Hazel is a very natural name, being both a kind of tree and an eye color.
     And Phinneaus ``is the kind of name we push in our books,'' she added, because it's unusual (particularly with that spelling) but also real. ``It's for adventurous baby namers.''
     Either that, or for parents who don't want their kids' names copied. You know it must drive celebs crazy that the great unwashed latch on to stellar names for their tots. You may never, ever afford a Mercedes SUV for your nanny, but you can name your kid Pomegranate.
     I didn't ask Rosenkrantz to speak to the ticked-off factor, but she did talk about a trickle-down effect. ``You see it with a name like Ava, which was never used.''
     Then Reese Witherspoon used it, and so did Heather Locklear and John McEnroe. Rosenkrantz drew in a breath. ``That name could climb to the top,'' she said, in awe.
     Well, at least Julia won't have to worry about her children's middle names becoming hackneyed.
     If there's one good thing about Walter and Patricia, it's this: They're safe.