About a boy called Facebook, about a girl called Like: ESPN?!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 17 May 2011 22:22

Your IT - Entertainment

Some parents want to go to great lengths to give their children unique names, with an Israeli couple potentially winning the award for the most oddly original name of all time, symbolic of love and a like of Facebook all at the same time.

Some Australians like to take kids names and then try to make them unique with what is known as 'boganised' spellings, thus forcing a child to always have to spell out a normal sounding name with an unnatural spelling.

Naturally, not everyone does this, but the quest to give children unique names knows no bounds. Only a few weeks ago we heard of the Egyptian child named Facebook, in honour of the organising role Facebook helped play in the Egyptian revolution.

Now it's an Israeli couple with an existing penchant for unusual names who have named their newest daughter Like, after the well known 'Facebook Like'.

The proud parents, Lior and Vardit Adler, were reported by the BBC to be looking for a "modern and innovative" name, with Like's mother, Vardit, saying Like to her was like 'Love'.

The couple also have a child whose name is Pie, with the story also covered by iTWire colleague David Heath.

But unusual names are a global phenomenon. An article from WTOP.com called 'Brand names'¦ for kids?', published in 2005, copyrighted in 2003 and using data from the year 2000 unearthed 'the latest trend in baby names' which were taking 'pop-culture to a new level, naming kids after consumer products.

Names chosen for children in the year 2000 as seen in US Social Security records included 'Infiniti', the model name of a US brand car, 'Celica', which is the name of a Toyota sports car, the luxury brand Armani, clothing brands Timberland and  Nautica, cosmetics brand L'Oreal and food brand Del Monte.

Two families each decided to name their sons ESPN after the sports cable channel, a WTOP.com staffer had 'talked with teen girls named Nonchalant and Unnecessary' and another WTOP.com staffer had 'even heard of one named Syphilis.'

After all that, I think I like Like a lot better!