I always get a kick out of the names of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s three girls. They are Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Belle. Really. I keep thinking, are these the names of children or an Iditarod dog sled team? The poor girls have enough to overcome being the daughters of two popular movie stars and having Ashton Kutcher as their step dad. They didn’t need any more material to bring up in therapy.

Unusual first names came up again when I saw a news story the other day about baby names. A website called BabyCenter that markets itself as a resource for expectant moms (what do you suppose they are expecting?) conducted a survey on what parents are thinking when they pick a name for their child.

By some of the bizarre names out there, apparently many are thinking they’re naming a pet gerbil or goldfish or some other creature that couldn’t care less what sounds you make when addressing it. On the TV news story about the survey, they interviewed one family who gave their child this really long name that I can’t begin to recall now. I do remember, however, when they flashed it on the screen it was full of z’s, x’s, and y’s. It looked less like a child’s name and more like the name of a chemical compound found in a prescription pain medication.

I told my wife, Beth, that if these people really wanted to be creative in the naming department, they should work for a pharmaceutical company coming up with drug names such as Xenical and Zyrtec. Imagine what might happen if one of these drug naming people married a celebrity:

“Xenical Zyrtec Paltrow, did you make this mess?”

Granted, my family has the world’s most generic names imaginable: Lee, Beth, Kevin and Christopher. Snoozeville, right? But we do have the zany Polish last name going for us, with random letters and all. That brings the level of difficulty up several notches.

For full disclosure, however, I should mention that my mom and sister shared the same first name, Vega. And I have a nephew who was named after an architectural term. At least that is how my brother explained it. No, his name is not Cantilever or Buttress (“Cantilever Buttress Paltrow, did you make this mess?”). It is Arris, which is actually a pretty cool sounding name. In case you were putting two and two together, however, my brother changed his last name a long time ago, so my nephew IS NOT Arris Ostaszewski. Although, that’d have been awesome.

The funny thing about names is that once you give someone a name, it fits perfectly. It’s weird. This helps explain why in the survey only three percent of the parents regretted the name they chose for their child. Within minutes of being born that little person magically becomes Scout or Apple or Arris. So much so you can’t imagine them being called anything else.

As for the celebrity who named their kid Oceanus, I misled you. It wasn’t a celebrity at all. Instead, it was one of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Oceanus was born, literally, in the middle of the Atlantic.

Another boy, named Peregrine, was born on the Mayflower while it was anchored at Provincetown Harbor. Hey, give them a break. You would start coming up with strange names too if trapped in tight quarters for months sailing across the ocean breathing 95 percent Pilgrim fumes.

But b.o. wasn’t the Pilgrims’ excuse, because I found a couple of websites with the Mayflower’s passenger list and here are some of the other first names found onboard: Humility, Resolved, Love, and Wrestling. As a society, we Americans have been naming our children unusual things from before day one.

Therefore, all of you celebrities who think you’re being really hip, cool, trendy and with it, let me tell you something: Giving your offspring an unusual or unique name is just so four centuries ago.

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