It's Christmastime in the city, and amid bad Mariah Carey performances and concurrent mass protests spurred by police injustice, little babies are being born to celebrities. The Baby Name Critic, a Lincoln Republican at heart, will focus today on the latter.

Here is the news: Former SNL player Jimmy Fallon and his wife, Drew Barrymore's co-worker Nancy Juvonen, have produced a daughter named Frances Cole. She will evidently be called Franny. Franny Fallon.

This is a thing (rich, trendy, white) parents are doing nowadays that I can't quite comprehend: naming their tiny daughters "Frances." It's like they have a fine little tyke, infans tabula rasa, something pure to experiment with, and they want to ruin it, so they pour dirt and trash on it by bestowing it "Frances." It is my belief that, based on its arrangement of consonant and vowel sounds, "Frances" is a name suitable only for a farm pig.

I have also seen this name, "Frances," deployed in an ironic fashion, like an ugly sweater, aviator eyeglasses, or a non-functioning typewriter. This is simply tragic for a child. Everything old is not new again. This child will not innovate. Possible future occupations for a "Frances:" chamber musician, community theatre character actress, book re-shelver.

Further, I simply cannot support an F-F alliteration for a female child's name. Women have it hard enough already.

Frances joins big sister Winnie, which is the name of the Baby Name Critic's brother's dog.

This has been Baby Name Critic.

Leah Finnegan is Gawker's Baby Name Critic.

[Pic via AP]