is this a joke?

okay, so i need to go back onto the topic of baby names for just a minute after discovering this "article" on babycenter.com from back in 2005.

(yes, i read about baby names. i've been doing it since the 6th grade. we all know this, but i still feel i need the caveat.)

here are some highlights from this article:

"We're particularly impressed with the BabyCenter parents who used apostrophes to come up with unusual, clever, and musical-sounding names."

they are encouraging this??? look at this horrendous list with the following heading:

"Revamp a classic name with a little punctuational flair. We dig these very creative apostrophe-enhanced spellings from 2005"



Rach'El??
De'Liberately?? THAT'S NOT EVEN A NAME!!

it's one thing to have crazy people on baby name polls (dear Yahoo Answers Baby Names, thank you for all the countless hours of killing-time-at-work entertainment. love, andrea), but when these are somewhat "qualified" people (if Editor's Choice means the "we" in this article are editors at the popular/somewhat credible website about babies) making these suggestions to the public... then we have a problem.

how does little Rach'El even learn how to spell her name, let alone learn how to correct people on how to spell it? "mommy, how come apostrophe isn't in the alphabet?" and by the time she's 12, i'm sure she's either already visited the judge to change her name or is on drugs to forget all the stress that comes from having to spell your name to people all day long... "no, no... it's R-A-C-H-apostrophe-capital E-L". how could that poor girl not want to shoot herself every time someone has to spell it (or pronounce it? no one knows what to do with their voice when they see an apostrophe that's not an O' at the beginning of a last name.) just so sad...

and if that's not enough for one article, here is the next section:

"Food for thought
When Gwyneth Paltrow had her daughter, Apple, in May 2004 she opened the door for a variety of tasty treats that serve as great baby names. Our favorites from 2005:



my only comment on this is... couldn't they have at least spelled Caramel correctly??

there should be laws against this stuff.

(as a shout out to where i discovered the exciting world of Yahoo Answers Baby Names, check out this blog on bad baby names... hilarious. although he really needs to write on it more!)