5 Real Baby Names That Won't Make Any Sense in a Few Years
Today's babies are born into a world of economic uncertainty, political gridlock, and '90s-kid parents who think "Britney" is the correct spelling. Also, most disturbingly, parents love naming their babies after the shit they see on TV and forgetting that humans tend to stick around a lot longer than the average ratings sensation. That's why in about 20 years you'll see a lot of embarrassed adults with baffling names like ...
Khaleesi (from Game of Thrones)
Just in case you're too cheap to get HBO, "khaleesi" means "queen" in the fictional language of the Dothraki from Game of Thrones. Despite being more of a title than a name, last year the word showed up on the birth certificates of 146 American baby girls whose parents apparently anticipate them to blossom into sexy dragon ladies who get nude a lot.
In 14 years, 146 girls will come to the realization that their parents are giant horndogs.
Considering that the novels have existed since 1996 and the name only showed up after the HBO series started, it's safe to say that once GoT is taken off the air, "Khaleesi" will go back to sounding like a stripper of mysterious ethnicity who does weird things with snakes in public. (Which isn't too far from the source material, actually.)
Bentley (from 16 & Pregnant)
16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom star and one-woman cautionary tale Maci Bookout named her son/contractual obligation "Bentley," and since then it's become the fastest rising boy's name of 2013. It's also gotten a bump from a contestant on The Bachelorette. So it's more than a baby name -- it's a beacon to detect people with shit taste in television.
Too bad neither parent fought not to name him "Bentley."
But here's the thing -- do you remember the names of any of the contestants on The Real World? There was Puck and, uh, Puck. Hell, you probably saw a half-dozen of them living in the park last month and didn't recognize them. Reality TV doesn't exactly appeal to long attention spans, so in a few years, "Bentley" will go from "trendy MTV name" to "pompous British butler." As it should.
Sookie (from True Blood)
Sookie Stackhouse is the shrill and unloveable protagonist of True Blood, another HBO drama about breasts. The vampire-centric show debuted in 2008 -- by 2010, "Sookie" was the fastest growing girl's name around. It has remained popular through this year, probably because there's a law that says you can't name all of your babies "Bella."
"Sookie and Blacula, stop making a scene!"
But True Blood can only make "Sookie" trendy for so long, and the show's already in its unapologetically absurd sixth season. And as with Game of Thrones, this character existed in books for years and no one gave a crap. So the minute Anna Paquin leaves vampire-humpin' behind, all those li'l Sookies are doomed to a lifetime of sounding like someone pet's Shih Tzu and getting mistaken for poorly pronounced "Susies" in phone transactions.
"No, with a K. Yes, I'm not on speaking terms with my parents."
"Jax" -- as in the main biker dude from FX's Sons of Anarchy -- is another one of the hottest new baby names around. It shot up 400 places in the baby name lists since the show debuted ... even though Wikipedia informs us that the character's name is actually "Jackson." That's right, this isn't even a real name in the show. In fact, "Jax" shouldn't be a real name anywhere outside of Mortal Kombat.
You're only allowed to call yourself "Jax" if you can do this.
Then there's the fact that, according to SoA's creator, the show will be off the air within three years. Hopefully those 4-year-olds will be patient enough by then to explain that they're named after the leader of a fictional biker gang, not a sk8er moniker of the guy on the $20 bill.
Facebook, in All Its Forms
In 2011, an Egyptian man saw all those people who flood Facebook with pictures of squishy newborns or create profiles for their babies and scoffed, "I can top that." Yep, he actually named his daughter "Facebook," presumably after Justin Timberlake convinced him to drop the "The." Then came the Israeli baby "Like" (after Facebook Likes) and a kid named "Hashtag," after the feature that began on Twitter that Mark Zuckerberg eventually copied.
We're just impressed she can spell "Hashtag."
However, we don't need to tell you that Facebook is already losing millions of users as teens ditch it for something cooler, because you've already seen it happen with half a dozen other "essential" social networks in the past decade. By the time these kids reach grade school, their names are gonna sound as relevant as "Friendster," "Top 8 Tom" or "DancingBaby.GIF" would today.
Although the dancing baby legally changed its name to "Heywood" in 2007.
