Sunday Summary: 10/18/09

First, congratulations to reader Photoqulity for a successful showing of her work Fuzzhead by DP at the Newport News Fall Festival of Folklife. Her bibs rock!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

True fact: I can recite the original text of Where the Wild Things Are. From memory. (And yet I regularly forget my PIN number. Go figure.)

Parlor tricks aside, it sounds like Spike Jonze has managed to turn Maurice Sendak’s beloved classic into an appealing children’s movie. Best of all? He got to name the monsters! Fritinancy linked to an interview with Jonze and Sendak about christening the five Carol (male), Alexander, Ira, Judith and Douglas. But we all know that the name to get the biggest boost from this flick is probably the already popular Max – he of the wolf-suit, who could soar in the 2010 rankings.

Speaking of heights, unless you were under a rock, surely you caught the not-flight of Falcon, the boy who ran up a bill with NORAD in a balloon built by his daredevil Dad. (Except not. It turned out Falcon was on terra firma the whole time.) No, you’re not imagining it, either – Daphne du Maurier penned an all-but-forgotten novel titled The Flight of the Falcon back in 1965 – but her main characters were Aldo and Armino. Falcon has brothers named Bradford and Ryo, and the whole family recently featured on an episode of Wife Swap.

While we’re talking television:

• On FOX’s high school musical Glee, quarterback Finn suggested a baby name to cheerleader Quinn: Drizzle. Quinn was not impressed;
• On the baby shower episode of 18 Kids and Counting, grandma-elect Michelle fixed Mackynzie’s name on the sheet cake after the bakery biffed the spelling. The first, I’ll bet of many such incidents.

In real life, non-reality-TV baby names:

• Bewildertrix wrote about the Boo phenom. I have yet to spot it in the US, but apparently there’s an epidemic of girls with names like Daisy Boo elsewhere in the English speaking world. And she spotted a Kherington – as in Fame! Of course, hers was a middle name – Brooke Kherington;
• In News from the North, parentcentral.ca reports on a new baby named Briese Lively. The first name is a friend’s surname, pronounced Breeze. I can’t help think that Briese would’ve benefitted from a more restrained pick in the middle spot;
• From Canada to Russia, with love … Nancy posted about the most popular names in Vladivostok, Russia, where the As have it – Anastasia, Alexandra, Anna, Alexander and Artem share the top spots, along with Vladislav – can you imagine being Vladislav from Vladivostok;
• Speaking of global names, Laura Wattenberg posted on the Global Hit Name You Haven’t Noticed – Matthew. And Matteo, Matthias, Mate, Mathieu …

A few other notes:

• Actress Nia Long’s son (he’s eight) is called Massai Zhivago. Call me crazy, but I love it;
• Real World alum Rachel Campos-Duffy (back from Season Three, San Francisco, when we were all watching) grew up and became an occasional guest host of The View, the political conservative they call on when their regular reality-star-alum/political conservative isn’t available. I might not agree with her, but I like the names she and husband Sean picked – and they’ve had a lot of practice. Baby #6 is on the way – the first five are Eva Pilar, Xavier Jack, Lucia-Belen, John-Paul and Paloma Pilar;
• Now that’s how to name twins! Arrested Development actor Jeffrey Tambor and wife Kasia have welcomed Hugo Bernard and Eli Nicholas, little brothers for Eve Julia and Gabriel Kasper. Then again, dad has plenty of experience. He’s 65;
• SNL’s Bill Hader and wife welcomed daughter Hannah Kathryn.

But the big starbaby news of the week is the arrival of Lou Sulola. Check out Nameberry’s Pamela Redmond Satran’s slideshow up at The Daily Beast, listing the many celeb babies given names that range from gender-neutral to gender-bending.

And lastly, I’m headed to New Orleans for a friend’s wedding this weekend. The Names of the Day posts will continue as planned, but if I do post a Sunday Summary, it will be brief!