Have we reached the end of truly wacky celebrity baby names?I table this sombre discussion after learning Kim Kardashian and Kanye West named their newborn daughter Chicago. While much of the world mocked Kimye this weekend — “Chicago West” sounds like a crime procedural created by Dick Wolf — a fair and balanced assessment leads me to shrug. If anything, given the number of place names that have infiltrated newborn registrars — Houston, Dakota, Adelaide, Bristol, Madison, Dallas, Cheyenne, Arlington, Sydney, Ireland, Brooklyn, Alberta — Chicago seems surprisingly banal, given the mother’s penchant for shock publicity and the father’s unhinged nature.Shouldn’t they have at least personalized their new daughter’s future brand by relying upon the Kardashian naming convention and spelling it Khikago? Celebrities differ from the rest of us in ways that transcend fame and money.Statistically speaking, they are also much more likely to assign a bonkers name to their offspring. Living in a parallel universe in which creativity is essential and uniqueness is a virtue, celebrities used to routinely saddle their progeny with an assortment of seemingly sadistic monikers that, if attempted in the real world, would trigger a flurry of concerned calls to the Children’s Aid Society hotline.“My neighbour just named his newborn Moxie CrimeFighter. Please investigate.”But unlike the rest of us, celebrities could get away with legally naming a child Pilot Inspektor, Banjo, Cricket, or Sage Moonblood because of gilded prenatal expectations. That child would inherit his or her lifestyle, not have to earn it. In this sense, celebrity was self-sustaining and generational. That child named Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence would inhabit a bubble that was fortified with immunity to traditional social pressures vis-à -vis competition in the workplace and dating pools. That child had it made.If your ...
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