First, congratulations to JNE on welcoming Imogen’s little brother, the nicely named Oliver George!

Aly turned five on December 17, but we finally got around to throwing his birthday party this weekend.  We invited his whole pre-K.  (No, the party was not in our house.  Our guests wouldn’t fit in our house, even standing still.)  

Anyway, I knew his classmate Micah was a girl.  (Lest that trouble you, the Biblical Micaiah is a gender neutral name  - the original Peyton.)  But imagine my surprise when I learned that Delayni is a boy.

In other random name spotting:

• I met a baby Miriam;
• Apparently an Australian family has a singleton (or two), two sets of quads and now twins born in October. And no reality show deal as of yet!  Darren and Dale Chalk named their kids Shelby, Matthew, Ellie, Joseph, Emma, Samuel, Alice, Sarah, Milly (who died in infancy) and Tiger-Lilly.  After solid classics like Alice and Joseph, the parents chose Tiger-Lilly feels a bit off, doesn’t it?  They have yet to release the twins’ names;
• Could Lux be the next Zoe?  Life Unexpected debuts on the CW January 18.  Heroine Lux grows up in foster care.  The series begins when she finally finds the parents who put her up for adoption.  Another contender for baby name inspiration?  The dad is Nate Bazile, nicknamed Baze;
• The latest series of The Bachelor includes contestants named Tenley, Valishia and Vienna.  (In DC, two of three names appear on a Metro Map.)  I can hear Tenley catching on.  But Vienna?  Pretty, but all I think is sausage.  Oh, and the bachelor this time is Jake;
• For Real Baby Names spotted a Zoeanna – a new, but inevitable and not unappealing compound name.   But does it rhyme with Joanna or is it Zoe Anna?  There’s also a girl named Swift and and boy called Rugby;
• Bewildertrix spotted a Vitalia.  Vidalia is an onion, but Vitalia is another of the lively Vita/Vida names;
• For every local hospital releasing the generic “Emma, Aiden Top Baby Names at Hospital Center,” a few do post surprising results.  At the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, the top girls’ name was Mary.  At Cowlitz County, Washington’s Saint John’s Medical Center, it was Peyton/Payton/Paityn;
• What a lovely surprise to stumble on a blog featuring four nicely named children – Mountain Mama Jenny is mom to Evelyn, Gretchen, Sylvia and Peter.

Elsewhere online:

• Swedish officials recently rejected the name Allah.   The land that gave us Abba and Ikea takes a hard line on “names that can give offence or be seen to cause discomfort for the bearer.”  No word on whether you’ll find a tiny blonde Nevaeh or Cohen toddling ’round Stockholm;
• Babble has an interesting article on Baby Name Regrets written by a mom who dared to name her son Seymour, nicknamed Sy;
• Sebastiane continues her world tour of names popular elsewhere, this time touching on the undiscovered – in America, at least - Leonie;
• Nancy the Wise brings us That Baby Name Might Be a Bad Baby Name If … Amen;
• Nymbler’s Top Baby Names for 2009 were Charlotte and Jack.  Ho-hum.  But check out the names with “a lot of activity,” including Alix, Fiammetta, Leandro and Aytan;
• Nymbler also posted December 2009 results.  The Top Five new baby names were Dash, Nala, Mairead, Azalea and Payson.  Payson is a surname and a town in Arizona, but I think there’s also a television tie-in with this one, or was it a movie?  Please comment if you recall;
• Nameberry listed popular names from around the world, including some lovely choices, from Jovana to Noor, Lewis to Hugo.

And in starbaby news:

• Sarah Chalke wears the boyish Elliott on Scrubs, but she gave her new son a nickname name more often heard on girl starbabies – Charlie, middle name Rhodes;
• The lovely Jean Smart has adopted a daughter, Bonnie;
• Country music’s Clay Walker has finally wearied of using his own name for his offspring.  After MaClay DaLayne, Skylor ClayAnne and William Clayton, he is now father to Mary-Elizabeth.  (MaClay and Skylor are Clay’s daughters with his first wife, which also explains the abrupt shift in style.)

That’s all for this week.  Thanks, as always, for reading!