Name your kid after a car you can't afford: Bentley!

How snooty are these new-fangled baby names?

Tenley? Wasn't she on The Bachelor?

Harper? Did you name her in honor of Valerie Harper, or your momma who socked it to the Harper Valley PTA? (Update: Yes, Harper Lee...whose real name was Nelle.)

Castiel? Wasn't that Heaven Leigh's last name (Casteel) in the VC Andrews book?

Also, I fear that Tenley, Kinley, Tinsley and Kinsley are the new Aiden, Jayden, Brayden, Cayden and Peyton.

(Thanks to Meghan for the link!)

Helmet head

Now I'm a protective mom, but not THIS protective.

Baby cologne?

In the shampoo aisle at Babies R Us I spotted this, Johnson's Baby Cologne!

The thought of a baby wearing cologne kind of cracks me up. I picture a suave baby with sunglasses and gold chains, trying to pick up all the girl babies.

Who puts cologne on their baby? I can only assume it's a cultural thing. The label was in English and Spanish -- is it a Hispanic custom?

Baby rooms

So the San Francisco Chronicle has a blog called The Mommy Files (ugh...) and they held a contest for best decorated baby room.

I kinda like the first one they show, where the family pets have been painted into a mural, but the winning room (keep scrolling down) is just dull, dull, dull.

Gray walls? Some kind of...white tree on the wall with Pottery Barn butterflies? I am not sure why that is considered better than the other rooms shown.

I never got terribly into nursery decorations, I must admit. I think I thought I'd do a Classic Pooh room with the cream and sage green, and then a neighbor showed me her baby's room, which was Classic Pooh with cream and sage green, straight outta a catalog, and I thought, eh, Kelly's going to march to her own drummer, not jump in line with a trend and a mass-produced character. So there!

If the shoe fits

Crib shoes designed to look like high heels.

Heh, but I think Miss Kelly will pass on these. (Jeff Sparkman has a much better headline: "Nobody puts Baby on the corner."

Ja vol!

Top GERMAN baby names, via Metafilter.

Boys' names that struck me funny: Felix. Moritz. Fabian. LINUS.

Girls' names: Finja. Lotta. Wiebke. Elif??

Name games

Most popular baby names of each decade, going back to the 1910s.

I would like to go back in time and tell a mom of 1910 that "Madison" would be a popular first name for girls one day, and watch her disbelief. "Nothing will ever displace Mildred!"

Name game

My friend Ann sent me the list of the Top 100 Baby Names of 2007, according to Baby Center. Some thoughts:

--Thankfully, Kelly is not on the list, for either gender.

--Aiden, Jayden, Caden AND Brayden? Stop the insanity! They sound like a boy band.

--I hope someone names their twins Madison and Addison. Also, who is out there still naming their daughter Madison at this point? It's about the most overused name there is, the purest example of a cliche name for its era. How about moving on to another random state capital, like Albany or Sacramento?

--The last name as first name trend continues to rage. Our own last name, Cooper, is #70. STOP NAMING YOUR KIDS MY LAST NAME!

--When in doubt, turn to the bible. Elijah! Gabriel! Isaac! Isaiah! But stop with the backwards names...Nevaeh?

--It's funny to me how many people are shocked when they choose a name like Sophia or Emily and then their kid goes to school and meets seven others.

Power of the press

Omar, who's also a new parent to a beautiful baby girl, linked to these onesies, that read: "When I grow up, I wanna be a reporter like Daddy."

Cute, but what if it's MOMMY who's the reporter? (Not that I am a reporter, mind you, I'm an editor and writer, but I have to stick up for my comrades.) Maybe I'm just not seeing the female version.