Happy New Year!  The holidays are always a great chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen for a while.  I discovered an old friend is now dad to a daughter called Ada Maple.  And I heard that several friends-of-friends and cousins-twice-removed are expecting.  In every case, I made sure to offer my sincere congratulations before asking if they’d thought about names.

At least, I think I did.

Let’s start with something different: a reader question.  What do you think of the name Ranger?  There are a few possible ways the parents might use it.  Check out the poll below, and feel free to leave a comment.

A few other boy-name thoughts:

• I’m curious to see The Green Hornet rebooted with Seth Rogen as slacker-turned-hero Britt Reid.  Reed and Reid are both near their all-time highs for use in the US.  If the movie is a hit, betcha we’ll hear them more;
• I’m also wondering if Britt could catch on for boys.  It was also the name of one of the lead characters on short-lived FX series Terriers.  Conventional wisdom says that Britt is a Scandinavian girls’ name, related to Bridget, as in Swedish actress Britt Ekland.  But he’d fit right in with Gage and Cole;
• Along those lines, I raised the idea of Hale for a son over on the AppMtn Facebook page.  I was mostly think of Kale/Cale when I asked the question, but Emily G. pointed out that Hale also conjures up Nathan Hale;
• ForReal unearthed a ton of new surnames and surname sound-alikes being use in the first spot. How ’bout Danner, Corbett, Deagan, or Whitten?

In other news:

• The continuing round-up of year-end baby names yielded one truly interesting list.  Washington State’s TDN.com reported the top baby names at St. John Medical Center: Kaiden and Addison.  Also epidemic in Longview, WA’s nursery schools?  Karlee and Brycen;
• Speaking of surprising names, the first baby of 2011 for Florida’s Treasure Coast is a tiny girl with a big name: Le-Royalti Jacqueline Le-Grace.  They’re calling her Pinky;
• And the Mitzi goes to … check out Elisabeth’s take on Celeb Baby Names 2010 over at You Can’t Call It “It”.  Nameberry also weighed in on Celebrity Baby Names this year;
• I stumbled on this list of Hippie Baby Names. Juniper, Ivy, Sage – I’m on board.  But Chai?  I’m stuck – is it daring and wonderful or just plain bizarre?
• It’s so nice to hear Stanley get some love, even if it is mostly in the UK – for now;
• Jezebel’s article on gender-neutral naming is a bit off - I’m not sure the Canadian prof quoted everywhere really did his research, or maybe he’s only looking at few decades’ worth of info – but the comments are worth a scan.

A few celebrity babies arrived just in time to be up at midnight on December 31:

• Elton John is a new dad to Zachary Jackson Levon;
• Dierks Bentley welcomed a daughter named Jordan Catherine, a sister for Evalyn Day;
• And, of course, Alanis Morisette is a new mom to a son named Ever Imre.

That’s al for this week.  As always, thank you for reading, and have a fabulous first week of 2011!