Why do celebrities pick the oddest baby names? Just when you thought the celebrity baby name bar had hit bottom, Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson have lowered it even further.
Bronx Mowgli Wentz.
A borough of New York City, and a character from Disney’s The Jungle Book. I suppose it was only a matter of time before a set of loving parents used the location/Disney character
combination in crafting a name for their offspring. (Next up: Detroit Poppins? Albuquerque Nemo? Miami Ratatouille?)
With the name given to their first (and hopefully, last) offspring, Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson have lowered the celebrity baby bar even further. And that’s a bold statement, considering some
past efforts.
There’s Messiah Ya’majesty (rapper T.I.), Pilot Inspektor (Jason Lee), Tu Morrow (Rob Morrow … get it?), Moxie Crime Fighter
(Penn Jillette … nut job), Apple (Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow), Kal-el (Nicolas Cage) and Reign Beau (Ving Rhames) to name a few.
CORRECTION: Actually, can we take back the last one? Ving Rhames is a huge frickin’ dude, therefore, we were obviously kidding before. Great naming, Ving!
These names are so dreadful, it’s hard to believe these people are living in reality. Even the cheesy characters of Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill (alternate universes as one can find) have real names. For the most part, anyway.
Back to the
parents of Bronx Mowgli et al.: Where do they come up with this stuff, and why?
To a point, it’s a case of stupid is as stupid does. Ashlee Simpson ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, to put it mildly, so the oddball name seems even worse by association. The inverse is true
as well.
Certain people are given more leeway than others in this area because they have earned it over decades of coolness. Some of the names selected by Brangelina (Shiloh, Knox, Vivienne), TomKat (Suri)
and Gwen Stefani (Zuma, Kingston) are unconventional, but we are talking about the coolest chick alive, plus a pair of modern-day film legends. As long as they don’t call their kid Cingular or
something, they’re gonna get the benefit of the doubt.
Pete Wentz and the like get no such treatment.
Nor do they deserve it. The question is why celebrities feel the need to concoct such absurd names in the first place.
Perhaps in this gossip-driven, bloodthirsty, 24-hour news era, the most attention-hungry think up the most ridiculous things to call their newborn, unwitting celebrity babies as just one more way to make sure they dominate headlines for another news cycle.
Perhaps subconsciously, stars seize upon the opportunity of parenthood to project their inner quirks and personalities in a way that is, for a change, unscripted – not micro-managed by their reps
and publicists (the fact that the celebrity gossip world will be up in arms may even play a role in their decisions, oddly).
Perhaps they pick out these absurd titles as a means of
assuring that, no matter how ordinary the kid ends up being, at least something about him or her will be special, just like the famous parent(s).
Just kidding. Sorry, Pete and Ashlee. We tried to come to your defense just briefly there, and we couldn’t even write the previous paragraph with a straight face. Good thing you
guys make a lot of money, as the whole team of psychiatrists you’ll have on retainer in about five years could set you back a grand per hour.
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