Cut the crazy baby names people!

“So What” Celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have confirmed they named their baby this week with the most entertaining name… “North”  that can be added to a surname of “West”… making the child “North West”.   They have apparently nicknamed the child “Nori”.  The name “North” on its own ain’t all bad, I guess.  Its just that the combination will reap years of fun.   One person on Twitter was funny enough to say “Kanye West’s daughter North West, 1st year of school… *Gets report card* …*Says North West has trouble following directions*”.

Now I know most of us here don’t really give a stuff about the Kardashians… I certainly don’t… Kardashian who?  But it brings me back to when we named our kids, ten short years ago.

We picked a fairly “out there” name for our firstborn at the time and kept our baby name a secret for the whole pregnancy so the Grandparents, who were most excited at the arrival of their first Grandchild would not be able to give us their opinion.  We didn’t really want to be told the offenses of our same selection before we had even imposed it.  Our name selection of “Paris” seems tame by most oddball standards today…which leads me to the question…

As grandparents, how much influence do you think you should have over the crazy baby names that are being chosen by the younger generation?  After all, do you really want to go round calling your grandchild Pilot or North for the rest of his or her life?    And what advice would you give your kids and grandchildren on name selection?

Our beautiful firstborn’s name of “Paris” was our most outrageous selection, but I must admit that my two girls are both named after European cities… which got plenty of laughs for a while before it became the Hollywood thing to do (I say we got there first).   Paris is not the first choice of names for many of the more traditional generation.  When we told our families after the birth we got quite a few stunned looks before they broke into gorgeous grandparent expected smiles… “That’s an interesting name” they would say… with that lilt in their voice

Now my kids are heading on for 10 years old, it seems names are getting less and less traditional.  My choice of “Paris” is frankly rather mainstream today when compared with

“Apple” – daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin

“Blue Ivy” – daughter of Beyonce and Jay-z’s baby

Tu Morrow – daughter of Rob Morrow

Zuma Nesta Rock – daughter of Gwen Stafani

Pilot Inspektor – Son of Jason Lee

What advice would you give your kids about selecting a baby name today?  And would you want to be involved or will you just be happy with a grandchild and call it whatever you had to?