WNTW UK
 

If you're going to buy (or download) one Serge Gainsbourg CD, I'd go with "Comic Strip," a greatest hits CD of sorts, which will irk the purists, but fuck em. It's got requiem pour un con (requiem for a cunt); Bonnie and Clyde (duet w/ Brigitte Bardot), Docteur Jekyll et Monsieur Hyde, Ford Mustang, Hold Up, and the two killer duets with Jane Birkin, Je T'aime . . . Moi Non Plus, and Soixante Neuf Annee Erotique.

Good ole Serge. That guy got quality poon. In fact, he might win the "guy who looks-wise went the most out of his league." Any other nominees?

A rose by any other name
 

I like this trend. We all should. If only all wannabe yuppie nouveau riche people named their kids Brittany, Ashley, Kaitlin and Brianna, we could point them out and avoid them and their Mini-McMansions.

That's my Paigow of the Day.

A rose by any other name
 

Shanigua? No. You need a Carribean vacation, bucko.

A rose by any other name
 

It's not like the impulse is unique to blacks, either, although people feel free to be judgmental about black names while they keep to themselves a little more about, e.g., Mormon baby names.

(spree: "An online help for parents looking for that distinctive name that says 'I'm a Utah Mormon!'")

A rose by any other name
 

BUt what is Ytossie?

A rose by any other name
 

The last-name-as-first-name (applied to both males and females, making it impossible to tell what the person is) seems like it's been around a long time and is not a recent phenomenon.

A rose by any other name
 

this one jumped out at me:

Abcde

A rose by any other name
 

This reminds me of the time when I rhetorically asked about the frogstorm in Magnolia and how that could happen and chris came back with a very methodical explanation of the phenomenon.

A rose by any other name
 

Actually I was waiting to hear your advice. Little Damareus is black (as are his pre-adoptive parents) and those studies about black-sounding names have been in my mind. My objection to Semaj is not only that he might have troubles in the future because of the ethnicity, but also the pronunciation part, which is a personal issue for me. The Fugee last name is not common but shouldn't be that hard to pronounce or spell. But my whole life I've had to correct people and spell out my name for them, only to hear "Oh, it's spelled just like it sounds." I think it would be nice to have a name that people got right without help.

I think, however, that Semaj/James is something I really have to talk to them about. The slash is a deal killer for me. I'll also mention the studies and my pronunciation/spelling issues (they both have easy to spell and say names and may never have thought about it) and let them add that to their consideration.

What amused me is that they started the name conversation by saying they thought Damareus is "too different" and then came up with Semaj as the alternative. Talk about your cultural differences; I'd never pick that as the less "different" of the two.

ETA: They have two new middle names picked out for him too so using either Semaj or James as a middle name would give him three.

A rose by any other name
 

Yeah, I would have guessed girl's name.

Apropos of nothing, the site's URL struck me as funny. Maybe had something to do with the failed Presidential campaign this year?

A rose by any other name
 

You have never been to Antiqua? Its a lovely island. AN old French colony. Henry the Eighth took it over to store his excess furniture and the rest is history.

A rose by any other name
 

Yes, they're all named Ann-Yung.

A rose by any other name
 

When did the two-middle-names approach come into vogue? It's almost to the point where they need multiple lines on teh birth announcement for the baby alone.

Is it a result principally of women either keeping their names or insisting that the children have both parents names in their name, but they also want a middle name? Or is it some sort of indecisiveness? Or just that, without the likelihood of 6 kids, you need to cram all the names you ever loved into one kid?

A rose by any other name
 

True, but it was only prevalent among people with names like Auchincloss Frick Bellweather, III of Rye or Purvis Merriweather Crump, VII of Festerville, WV.

Only recently have we begun to see Churchill Raliegh Goldstein, Brittany Elsworth Pivonski, Eleridge Carrington Garopoloulos, etc... jumping rope in the cul de sac.

A rose by any other name
 

It's not a result of women keeping their names - it's been around before that became a real phenomenon. Prince Charles, for example, who is fairly old, is Charles Phillip Arthur George Windsor.

I have no idea why people do it - perhaps maybe to satisfy family members who want "family" names kept in offspring. My mother has has three middle names for that reason. Her siblings and my cousins mostly have two middle names, some three. She thought it was stupid, so I and my sisters only have one.