Ten Best Celebrity Baby Names, 2008
Since 2006, we have ended each year with our list of the Ten Most Notable Celebrity Baby Names of the year. For 2008, as in previous years, the task was not an easy one. Celebrities have a way of coming up with the most unusual, creative, and thought-provoking names. (Did someone say Bronx Mowgli?). So each year, we have to winnow down a large list into ten celebrity baby names that we think show the most creativity, or spark the most controversy, or, in some enduring way, can be termed ‘notable’.
2008 saw a whole crop of unusual celebrity baby names — more so than in 2007, when traditional names seemed to be a little more fashionable. By 2008, celebrities were choosing very personal, creative names for their offspring, often with an interesting back story. The year also seemed to include more foreign-sounding names, perhaps a testament to the growing diversity of this country.
Whatever the cause, 2008 was a fun year for celebrity baby names. It had a bumper crop of mega-celebrity births, with Angelina Jolie, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, Ashlee Simpson, and other big names leading the way. Yet, with the exception of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz naming their son Bronx Mowgli, there was perhaps a little less media hysteria in 2008 over celebrity baby names, compared to the watershed year of 2006, the year of Jayden James, Suri, and Shiloh-Nouvel.