Think of the children...

The list of top 100 names for the year came out. Most of them are the norm, but a few really make me wonder. Here is the list if you're curious, but I thought I would go over a few.

No 2 is Madison. I guess that's a girl's name. I never really thought of it that way. Sounds more like a street to me. I mention it mostly, though, because my new neice born this year is named Madison. Just hope people don't walk all over her when she gets older. Get it? Like a street. Maybe I shouldn't start off with bad puns...

Next one I notice is number 6 on the boys list: Jack. Not too unusual, except that apparently it wasn't anywhere near that high until recently. The network execs in charge of Lost should be happy about this.

Let's see, 13 on the boys list: Caden. Really? Is that even a name? Do you pronounce that with a S or K sound? I'm honestly not sure.

14 on the girls list: Lily. No I didn't forget an L there, but apparently a whole lot of other Americans did. If I ever meet anyone with their name spelled like that, I'm going to pronounce it just how it's written. I hope they complain to their parents about it. They deserve it. What were they expecting? "We'll just leave an L off. No one will notice, and it will make it easier for her to do paperwork." I hope your daughter grows up hating you.

Now here's the other side of that convention of respelling names: Brayden. Number 22 on the boys list. I've known some Bradens in my life, never a Brayden. I was never confused by the lack of a Y. Braying is something donkeys do people. When are they going to realize that naming your child something that sounds like a barnyard animal noise is asking for the child to grow up cutting himself?

I have to mention number 24 on the boys side, not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it's the best name on the list: Benjamin. Seriously, shouldn't this be higher up? At the same time, I notice number 100 is Ben. Just Ben. Now I go by Ben 99.9 percent of the time. If I hear Benjamin and it's not in a job interview or something equally professional, I instantly correct the person. It actually bugs me to hear my whole name. On the other hand, it would seem totally wrong to never have anything more to my name. Just Ben? How boring is that?

Number 53 on the girls list and number 99 on the boys is the same name: Peyton. Two questions: First, when did Peyton become a girls name and when did it become more popular than the male version? Only thing I can think of is too many football fans are having girls when they thought they were going to have a girl. "Well honey, the baby's room is already decorated to look like a Colts locker room, might as well just go with it. Otherwise she might grow up confused." Wouldn't want that now would we?

Well the list wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Only see one stripper name this year, Destiny, and that's pretty low on the list at 93. Jenna's pushing it, since the only famous person ever to have the name Jenna is a porn star. I guess most of these kids are fairly safe from abuse. Maybe once we get rid of all the stupid bad names, we can get parents to start actually raising their children again, instead of letting the TV do it. Ha! Yeah right.