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The Sunday NY Times delves into the preposterous waters of celebrity baby naming, and all of the greatest hits get mentioned: Penn Jillette's daughter Moxie CrimeFighter, Jason Lee's son Pilot Inspektor, and of course, the reigning dumb name champion, Apple Martin. (Curiously, however, Nicholas Cage's Kryptonian superspawn Kal-el gets nary a mention.) The article interprets the trend as something of an creative-heir insurance policy: that no matter how ordinary the kid ends up being, at least something about them will be special, just like their famous folks.

"A name is free, it is something that everyone has, so if you are a celebrity, you are going to have to work that much harder to set yourself apart as a person with a specialized knowledge or a rarefied taste," said Pamela Redmond Satran, who has written baby-name books with Linda Rosenkrantz, including "Beyond Jennifer and Jason" (St. Martin's). She said a competitive impulse among stars seems to account for the recent bonanza of unlikely baby names.

"In a weird way, it's like anorexia" in Hollywood, Ms. Satran said. "Anyone can be thin. The famous have to be thinner."

While it may sound outrageous to liken a life-threatening eating disorder to the joy of naming your newborn child, there really is some logic to the metaphor when you consider Hollywood's rampant culture of one-upmanship. Just as seeing your competition show up thinner than ever on the red carpet might send you directly to the nearest bathroom for a quick purge, being introduced to her beautiful baby daughter whose name is the sound of a faint hiccup can instantly throw you into a paralyzing inadequacy-attack over your own child-naming choices, GreenLightGo and Fairy Monster.