It’s the first Sunday Summary of 2010.  Happy New Year!  Congratulations to Chanara and her family as they celebrate their first New Year’s Day with new daughter Rosemary Amelie Belle.

Now, on to the random name spotting:

• Hat tip to Photoquilty for the heads up on Today’s story about bizarre baby names, including Marijuana Pepsi. Yes, really!  And she’s lovely, and nope, she doesn’t shorten it to Mari;
• My neighbors have welcomed a daughter named Murielle!  They weren’t sharing pre-baby, but did say that they found the name on their family tree.  Can’t wait to learn more, but maybe I’d better stick with saying congratulations first;
• One of Clio’s Christmas gifts was a Parents-branded ladybug popper thing-a-ma-jig.  Very cute.  The lagniappe was a toy catalog tucked inside, complete with cute kids identified by name.  The model kids were called the predictable Emma, Ava, Charlie and Brady, but there was also a Delana.  Is it a twist on Delaney?  Or a smoosh of Della and Anna?  I’m intrigued, and I can’t find it mentioned elsewhere;
• Not only does Laura of Heavenly Homemakers make her own vanilla wafers, she named her four boys Asa, Justus, Elias and Malachi.  Yes, it’s true.  If I follow a link to your blog to find a recipe, my second click is your “About” page to see if you share your kids’ names;
• Bewildertrix spotted a Harryo Lucy, twin sister to Poppy Grace.  I’ve been thinking about Harryo ever since I watched The Duchess.  Harriet was her daughter’s name, but she answered to the nickname Harryo;
• I’d never use it, but I love Richlinde, recently profiled over at Legit Baby Names;
• While flipping through an old Martha Stewart Living, I spotted a sibset: sisters Io and Adda, and brother Ray.  I’m always impressed when parents manage to use short names and still make them distinctive;
• Remember my How Close is Too Close post?  Discovery Health has a new show called Make Room for Multiples.  A couple named their triplets James, John and Jack – then welcomed twin boys called Jason and Jacob;
• For Real spotted a Daphnee.  Is it a typo, or will an -ee spelling emerge as Daphne variant?  Should we be expecting to meet Daphni and Daphnie, too?

In year-in-review news:

• I was thinking about writing a Celebrity Baby Names Year in Review post, but instead I’ll just point to this Nameberry article at Celebrity Baby Blog.  What they said;
• Nancy has a nice round-up of a few of the recent Most Popular Names of 2009 posts.  William is #1 in Tennessee;
• Data guru Laura Wattenberg has declared Emily and Jacob the Top Names of the Decade.  She’s referring to total use, of course;
• And I say again, Isabella’s popularity is not related to Twilight. Nor is Aiden’s popularity in Arizona related to Jon & Kate Plus Eight.  And their son is Aaden.

A few starbabies arrived just before the clock struck twelve, including:

• Black Crowes’ frontman Chris Robinson welcomed a daughter named Cheyenne Genevieve.  Chris is also dad to Ryder Russell with his ex, Kate Hudson.  Ryder and Cheyenne sound like siblings, but I’m surprised by the choice – Cheyenne is fading fast from her peak of #68 in 1997 and sounds rather uninspired for such a stylish dad;
• Indy car driver Hélio Castroneves and girlfriend welcomed a daughter called Mikaella. Call me crazy, but I like the spelling.  I’m just weary of any -ayla sounding name;
• Van Morrison is a dad – again – at the age of 64.  New baby is named George Ivan Morrison III.  (Hmmm … can’t confirm this on his website, and the original link is gone.  Am I imagining things?  See the comment below – thanks, Joyce!  The birth announcement was a hoax, but hey, Van as a nickname from George Ivan is still pretty cool.)

There’s an interesting article on double naming quoted at the Omaha World-Herald.  You’ll note that she’s mostly talking about English and French practices.  In the US, you can give a child a compound name, but unless you smoosh it together, Ava-Leigh is usually recorded as Ava L., not Avaleigh.  NOTE:  Please see Meredith Cane’s comment below.  She is, indeed, the expert quoted on double names.  But Cleveland Kent Evans wrote the article, and his research incorporates more than just Ms. Cane’s observations.  And 48 variant spellings for Lily-Mae is something else!

That’s all for this week.  Many thanks for reading!