Her email continues:

I'm stuck in the South—what if people look down on us... for giving her a harlot name? What if she gets older and people call her Jizz? Could a name like Jezebel become a prophecy?

Like I said, I love the name Jezebel, but at the same time I wouldn't want
to be one of those parents that curses their child with a stupid name. This
is a kid, after all, not a cat.

Former Jezebel editor Moe Tkacik once weighed in on why Jezebel is an awesome name for a blog, but, being named after a woman the Old Testament depicts as "a truly vicious tyrant who makes all the Israelites join her own heathenous religion and kills a lot of people" could be rough on a girl too young to defend herself through blogging.

She may have an easier life with a "Jezebel" variant like "Jessabell," but our own Irin Carmon says those can be problematic too:

I actually just found out that Jezebel is a variant on Isabel (maybe everyone knew this, but it was sort of a revelation for this Hebrew speaker). It's not a popular name in Israel because it sounds like the words for "island of garbage."

Iron & Wine thinks Jezebel is a name worth singing about, but Hortense found an old religion book called All of the Women of the Bible that's pretty anti-Jezebel (see image above).

The best person to ask would probably be... a woman named Jezebel. Fourteen Jezebels responded to a survey on Baby Names World, and 72% said they liked their name. But, the majority also reported being teased because of it. Said one:

They called me a whore so much it got a problem. Since my name is another word for prostitute people began to believe tha I actually was one. The boys started un-buttoning my shirt and attempted to panse me constantly. One guy actually came in to the girls bathroom and took pictures of me while i was changing. I was hurt so much by all of this that i legally changed my name to Bella. I cant imagin the type of person who would want this name.

Which does make "Isabel" sound a lot more appealing.

Jezebel By Iron & Wine [Grooveshark]
Should You Name Your Baby Girl Jezebel? [Baby Names World]

Earlier: Jezebel: A Love Letter To The Most Awesome Name In The Universe

Kluger (whose daughters are half-Mexican and named Elisa and Paloma) claims that while some Latin names — especially bilingual ones like Victoria, Cecilia, Hector, Sandra — remain popular, others "appear doomed."

He explains:

What happens, of course, when an immigrant group heads toward assimilation, is that each successive generation gets more educated (82% of first-generation Latin-American kids ages 15 to 17 attend school, compared with 97% of second-generation kids - hardly perfect but moving toward parity) and more proficient in the national language (by the third generation, 95% of Latino kids ages 15 to 17 speak English exclusively or very well). Another thing that happens is that parents start moving away from baby names like Guillermo and closer to names like William.

While there's a sense of belonging for people like Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba — born and raised in the U.S. with "Americanized" names, there's also the long-debated question: What's wrong with a name that reflects a baby's heritage? Throughout American history, there have been two schools of thought: You either choose assimilation or aspiration with an "American" name that makes the mainstream public more comfortable, or you "honor" your ethnicity or origins with a name that leaves little doubt about your background. Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Estevez; Ralph Lauren was previously Ralph Lipschitz — and Kluger equates the "Elisas and Jorges and Angelicas" of this era with the "Goldies, Shlomos, Moeshes and Mitzis" of an earlier time.

But if you pick an "assimilated" name to fit in, do you perpetuate the myth that those without assimilated names are "out"? If you worry that Juan or Manuel sounds foreign/uneducated, isn't raising a smart kid named Juan the best way to bust that idea? In any case, a recent study claims hat by 2025, close to 30% of all American kids will have some Latino ancestry. But instead of Pedro, Lucia and Maria, we'll have Michael, Elizabeth and Emily. Dodai, on the other hand…

Adios, Juan and Juanita: Latin Names Trend Down [Time]
Popular Baby Names [Social Security Association]

McDonagh goes off on "names that mean trouble," noting that "calling a baby Angel, Heaven, Misty or Destiny is tantamount to wiping tens of thousands off the child's future annual income." People associate someone's name with someone's class, she notes, and even teachers have admitted to "making assumptions about children based on names." So what's a Destiny, Angel, or Heaven to do?

It's difficult, I suppose, for parents to know how a name is going to be viewed 10, 20 years after their baby is born. I was just telling a friend of mine the other day that I'd named all of my Barbies "rich girl" names when I was younger, only to find out later in life that I'd actually given them what are now considered Rock of Love contestant names: Crystal, Amber, Tiffany, Brittany, etc. She noted that Brittanys were always the posh girls at her school as well, but that Britney Spears tanked the name pretty fast when she hit the scene in the late 90s.

McDonagh notes that children tend to live up to their names, taking on the personality characteristics expected of them. But perhaps that has more do to with the class-based sneering sent in their direction than the names on their birth certificates. If a teacher treats a Britney or a Bobbi-Jo like she's some inferior being, she might act out a bit, or at least dislike the teacher enough to be disruptive. Similarly, a girl with a "snobby" name might be disliked by others, based solely on the fact that she appears to come from a high-class family.

I will admit that I find certain names irritating (Nevaeh, I'm sorry), but what really bugs me is "unique" spelling. Everyone is so intent on making their kid a special snowflake that they give them a normal name with a "special" spelling, thereby dooming the kid to a life of "No, not Ashley, 'Asshhlyiee,'" or some such. The positive thing, I guess, is that nobody is doomed to their name forever, as these things can be changed. There might be hope for the Asshlieeyeyeeie's of the world, after all.

Names That Mean Trouble [TimesOnline]

Earlier: C Is For Courtney Whos Too Cool For School

"I thought he might grow into it but found myself flinching every time I heard someone say it," Corner writes in The Guardian, "I never called him anything but 'the baby'. By the time he was six months old, I realized having a child whose name I couldn't say was a problem." After discussing it with her husband, Corner decided to change the baby's name—to Huxley. While Corner and her husband felt comfortable with the switch, she says it was tough to break the news to certain friends and family members, who expressed concerns "about me and the future identity crisis I was creating."

Corner claims that her experience is part of a larger phenomenon, known as "baby name remorse," wherein parents suddenly regret the name they've chosen for their child and wish to go back and name the baby all over again. Meg Ryan famously renamed her adopted child, first calling her Charlotte, and then changing her name when the girl was a year old, as "I thought she was Charlotte and she's just not - she's a Daisy." But it is it okay to turn a Ralph into Huxley, or a Charlotte into a Daisy? Yes and no, apparently.

Psychologist Oliver James tells Corner that the fact that Ralph/Huxley was only six months old when his name was changed means that the switch won't harm him much: "A six-month-old couldn't care less what you call it. But from the age of 18 months most children have two-word utterances. So from the age of about two onwards, if the name change wasn't something that came from the child itself, it might be highly puzzling for the child involved." In other words, if you change a baby's name early enough, there won't be many repercussions. But wait too long and you are, in fact, stealing a bit of their identity away.

Commenters on Corner's piece are pretty brutal, mocking her for being shallow, picking the name "Huxley," and noting that perhaps she should have bought a dog instead of having a kid. But Corner and her husband seem happier with the change, and it was done before little Huxley would know the difference, so I suppose things worked out for the best, though one wonders which name little Huxley would prefer, and if he'll ever be mad at his parents for renaming him.

So what do you think, commenters? Is it okay to rename a baby? Or is the excuse that a child hasn't "grown into" his name more a reflection on the parents for not being able to accept their own choices?

Ryan Changes Her Daughter's Name [Contact Music]
Why I Changed My Baby's Name [Guardian]

Zoo baby Gorilla Dumped By Mom Is Doing Fine [SF Gate]

MEGAN: Good morning! Did you hear? Apparently Spain's President Zapatero is nearly as bad as Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. And Spain's apparently in Latin America.

JASON: I heard about that. Very maverick. But you must indulge me a brief veer off topic.

MEGAN: Okay, but first Russia and now Spain? Whatever happened to attacking Grenada?

JASON: Kenley? From Project Runway? You are just the FUCKING WORST EVER IN LIFE. You are an awful, undermining, leprous, personality-crippled knee biter whose every utterance causes me pain - like white hot needles. OH DEAR GOD BUT YOU ARE AWFUL KENLEY. AWFUL! I see that in the next episode, Tim Gunn tells you to lose the "sarcasm and the facetiousness," but what's left, Kenley? What's left? A thin puddle of oozing, malodorous pus with a tweaker's take on the 1950s? I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU LIKE I HATE FELINE LEUKEMIA.

Okay. So, now. Something about Spain?

MEGAN: Dodai's post on Project Runway will be up soon!!
Anyway, apparently, we're contemplating war with Spain, too. I guess once we're done bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bombing Iran.

JASON: Well, okay. Spain. Yes. McCain, he is Los Rebelde Original! Now he either HATES Spain or thinks they are part of Latin America or hears "Jose Zapatero" and thinks "Zapatista" or something. It's terrible. I don't hate Spain. I've never been there, but it's not because I hate Spain. As soon as the Spanish master crushed ice, I am going. Provided we are not BOMB BOMB BOMB LA BAMBAING them.

MEGAN: They put ice in sangria, just not Coke. It was a nice country. But, Iran, well, that's another story.

JASON: Well, that's a relief. Isn't Sangria banned in DC?

MEGAN: No! I have a friend who actually dug into this! In Virginia, the liquor distributors got a law passed that restaurants couldn't make sangria in advance (i.e., sell it by the glass) if it contained liquor and wine, and once it went into effect everyone pitched a fit so it's either been repealed or is about to be. Yes, I have friends enough into sangria that we looked up the legislative history when Jaleo was all "we can't sell it by the glass anymore."

Sarah Palin believes that Hillary Clinton should put aside partisanship and appear on stage with her for the sake of eventually bombing Iran and not the optics of the two of them on stage together.

JASON: Oh, well, Sarah Palin is going to reap the goddamned whirlwind if she keeps that shit up. She wants to wake up in bed with some animal that's been field-dressed by Harold Ickes? I sure would not. Speaking of, I love how they're making a big deal about Palin "going to the U.N." when she's apparently going to just be yelling at Ahmadinejad from the safety of Rudy Giuliani's cosmopolitan playground. She's going to CLARIFY her position on Iran? OOOOH. That's SURE to be REALLY interesting. For a woman who's touted as Alaska's Greatest Moosehunter, she seems to do a lot of shooting fish in a barrel.

Anyway, they should just send Amy Poehler. That way there would at least be one person there not offering a pale imitation of a stateswoman. And HRC can assiduously continue to not degrade her brand by equating it with Palin's.

MEGAN: Welll, but she'll meet other world leaders that also want to yell at A'jad. And then, as he exits, their eyes will meet across the plaza, the music will swell, the yelling people will seem to quiet around them. Time will stop as their love blossoms, Jason. It'll be a new era in America's policy toward Iran, one filled with musical montages, Central Park carriage rides and hot, sweaty sex between two uptight brunettes. And Hillary Clinton, with nearly as sensitive a gag reflex as my own (just ask Bill and that one ex-boyfriend of mine), needs not to hurl on camera, so she's opting to miss it.

JASON: Naturally, some of the Jewish organizations are seeking to have the invitation to Palin rescinded:

The National Jewish Democratic Council called late today for Palin's invitation to be lifted as well. "Monday's protest against Ahmadinejad is too important to be tainted by partisanship," Marc R. Stanley, the council's chairman, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the campaign of Senator John McCain is much more interested in scoring political points than insuring there is bipartisan solidarity around the anti- Ahmadinejad efforts.

"Therefore, we call upon the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to withdraw the invitation to Governor Sarah Palin and we applaud Senator Hillary Clinton's decision to not attend the rally after the attendance of Palin was announced."

MEGAN: It probably doesn't help that the Republican Jewish Coalition is running anti-Obama push polls.

JASON: And that's what happens when your convention speech includes a drop in, quoting Westbrook Pegler.

MEGAN: Oh, well, sure. But Palin's a Republican. Quoting notorious anti-Semites who also advocated for the assassination of RFK is cool as long as you're deeply committed to hating Iran and the Palestinians and whomever else we're supposed to hate. It's such a long list, I keep forgetting it all.

JASON: Half the country is on that list!

MEGAN: And like most of the rest of the world, it seems.
Anyway, so, someone hacked Palin's email. Yawn.

JASON: Yes. I saw that. Sort of couldn't avoid that!

MEGAN: Oh, wait, it proves that — as she's all but admitted to — she uses her personal e-mail for business. Great. Well, now that it's been hacked, both accounts are wiped from the servers and can't be retrieved. Way to go hackers! I know this because my Yahoo account got hacked a few months back and the guy erased my entire inbox and Yahoo was like, well, it's gone. Sorry.

JASON: Yeah. Naturally, there doesn't seem to have been anything INTERESTING in her inbox. Pictures of her family. Some phone numbers. Someone wrote her an email telling her that God was awesome.

MEGAN: God is pretty awesome, She and I totally get beer together sometimes and bitch about men. She apologizes for fucking that up a little, but free will seemed like a good idea at the time.

JASON: Real game-changing stuff! But Gawker got it, and the pageviews that come along with it. So, that will all be a part of one Nick's "SUCK IT ALEX AND CHOIRE, LOOK AT MY TOTALLY AWESOME SITEVIEWS" posts.

MEGAN: Which I read with rapt attention and think are incredibly genius. You know that.
[Tries to distract Jason with shiny things] Hey, look, Palin's the CEO of Alaska!

JASON: I view myself as the CEO of my junk.

Oh. I am petitioning Arlington County High Schools to get Nick's posts entered into the AP English curriculum. Honestly, they are an improvement over TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES.

MEGAN: I mean, though, what isn't an improvement over Tess? It's not Hardy's best work. There's no metaphorical emasculation through inadvertent castration. (Yes, I've read a lot of Thomas Hardy. Who can identify that book and impress me?)

JASON: See. That's what Nick provides! Metaphorical emasculation!
Speaking of Fiorina, Sam Stein told me yesterday, upon his return from seeing Our Lady Of The Elite Elitism Haterz, that she used Fiorina's "captive to choice" line. Or whatever it was. The Democratic Party holds women captive on abortion? That one? That beautiful marriage of corporate PR and gender subjugation?

MEGAN: I know, except she called it a noose!

JASON: A noose? Nice.

MEGAN: But, you know, not around African-American women, of which she presumably knows many. Lynn Forester de Rothschild totally has black friends.

JASON: Oh. The Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild is straight gangsta. The Lady Lynn will take up the cause of ensuring women that they know they shouldn't be captive to the idea that they are more than a sack of meat to jack sperm into.

MEGAN: The tyranny of choice shall not ruin this great nation! Lynn, please come save me from my right to have an abortion if I get pregnant from a sexual assault, and stroke my hair at the hospital and tell me how good it feels that we didn't elect an elitist. And maybe could you help pay for my rape kit? 'Cause I'm gonna need the help once John McCain makes my health insurance unaffordable and Palin charges me for it.

Oh, God, Karl Rove speaks! He doesn't think everyone will love Palin forever, but someone forgot to let him know that the new talking point is not to call Obama a first-term Senator less they remind people that he's been in office in the Senate longer than she's been a governor.

JASON: I think Rove is late to the party with that revelation. But back to Fiorina, she's not only making sure women are held captive to choice, she made sure that American consumers weren't held captive to only being able to by quality computers, by ensuring them that they'd have the choice to buy Hewlett-Packards. Which are like a motherboard shoved inside a cows ass.

MEGAN: Wait, didn't Carly nearly ensure that no one had a choice to buy HPs, what with almost driving the country into the ground?

JASON: Yes. I didn't say Carly was GOOD at her job! Only that she got a shit ton of money to leave it. Yesterday, when I heard that McCain was going to make her disappear, I wondered if she was expecting another $21 million severance package.

MEGAN: Not even Karl Rove gets that much, and he doesn't suck at his job.

JASON: I'm not sure how this relates, but you want to know what the Sarah Palin baby name generator gave me for my name?

MEGAN: What?

JASON: Taupe Armageddon. So, what can I say. This Sarah Palin thing hasn't been ALL bad.

MEGAN: I think I might beat that: I am "Tangle Jig Palin."

JASON: OMG. We have the best Sarah Palin names ever.

MEGAN: My Sarah Palin child alter-ego should totally go hunting and drink beer with your Sarah Palin child alter-ego.

JASON: "Tangle Jig Palin" sounds like some sort of hallucinogenic tea!

MEGAN: Which we should drink deeply of while riding in an airplane shooting at wolves!

JASON: We will drink Sangria with Jose Zapatero! And visit Hillary Clinton in New York.

MEGAN: Who will totally be our mom's new BFF if only that mean Obama man will stop trying to come between them because they both totes know what sexism is like.

(I guess it would help if I married someone with the last name "White" or something "typically black" like that and didn't fuck it up by doing the hyphen thing.)

Seriously though, I'm mostly kidding, but I'm also serious, perhaps because Sean Bell's cop/killers were just acquitted on all charges, which reminds me of another unarmed young black victim of racial profiling and police brutality whose death at the hands of a bunch of overzealous cops I covered in my past as an actual journalist. His name was Donta Dawson, pronounced like "Dante" as in the Inferno, which is to say Hell, by which I guess I mean "other people," or anyway, the notion that we can really ever understand what it's like to be one...so I guess I should just stick with the former game plan, which is to say, marrying a guy with a really outlandishly Jewish last name so I can name him something funny like "Mohammed," that he can safely shorten to something safe and uncontroversial like "Moe."

On Having A Black Name [Daisy's Dead Air]
Related: Are Distinctly Black Names A Thing Of The Past? [NYT]

For a new book, Bad Baby Names, Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback checked census records from 1790 to 1930 and found names like Garage Empty, Hysteria Johnson, Infinity Hubbard, Please Cope, Major Slaughter, Ima Muskrat, Ima Nut and Ima Hooker. They also interviewed adults who had survived childhoods with names like Candy Stohr, Cash Guy, Mary Christmas, River Jordan and Rasp Berry. Fun is one thing. But what if you want a kid to succeed? Do you name your daughter "C.E.O."?

According to a survey by BabyCenter, 58% of parents believe that the name they give their baby will contribute to his or her success in life, the Freakonomics guys write in the New York Times. ("Apparently they didn't read Freakonomics, or at least they didn't believe it," they add.) Moms and dads think a baby boy's name should convey strength and individuality; a girl's name should relay femininity, individuality and kindness. And yet! 3% of survey responders said they'd change their child's name if they could, because the name had become too popular. So much for individuality. "I've seen brilliant children with awful, meaningless names," said one parent.

(Meanwhile, the trend of naming your kid after a famous city (London, Dallas, Paris, Brooklyn) can only go so far: over on Babble this morning, Jen Chaney warns that some towns (Lizard Lick, NC, Crapo, MD, Sugartit, KY) should be avoided.)

As a child with a unique name I always felt bad for the kids in my class who had to be Brian M. and Brian S. or Jennifer C. and Jenny C. I thought unique names were better, until I realized that I'd be spelling mine pretty much every day for the rest of my life. But I've got to ask: Does an interesting name make for an interesting person? Even though Freakonomics claims that a name has nothing to do with the life a child will lead, do you secretly believe a name has the power to shape a kid's personality? To make a person achieve more — or less? (And are all Jessicas really bitches?)

A Boy Named Sue, and a Theory of Names, If I Name My Daughter 'C.E.O,' Will She Become One? [New York Times]
My Son Crapo [Babble]
The Big Baby Name Survey [BabyCenter]

Earlier: Sometimes, Parents Give Kids A "Bad" Name
The Most Popular Baby Names Of 2007
A Chinese Couple Have Tried To Name Their Baby "@"
It's Official: Jessicas — From Alba To Z — Suck
Jessicas Are All Pretty Bitches

Adrienne and Matt Grayson named their son Luke Beckett Grayson and regretted it almost immediately. "I couldn't shut up about how we should call him Beckett instead of Luke, and I also started mourning my maiden name, Shaw," Adrienne says. "I thought I should've made that his middle name because we weren't going to have more kids." She wanted to change his name to Beckett Shaw Grayson, so she spent hours on the phone with the Social Security office. But when her son's new Social Security card arrived, it read "Shaw Luke Grayson." Whoops!

Experts say that for parents who want to change their children's names, it's best to get the child's input if he or she is older than 2. "By 2 or 3 they have a sense of identity, and it could send mixed messages," says Dr. Karla Umpierre. "The child might ask himself, 'Do you want to change me?'" On one hand, your name is a very important part of who you are; those involved in the naming process should be happy, and free to change or amend their choice at will. Hell, if they brought you into this world, they can call you whatever they damn please! But what kind of lesson does a kid whose name has been changed learn? That it's okay to waffle? That second-guessing yourself is normal? That picking something and sticking to it is overrated? Also, since we're not talking Apple and Audio here, aren't there bigger fish to fry? Isn't the difference between Emma and Caroline almost negligible when you consider that names like Banjo, Ryder and Rumer abound? (P.S. I was almost Nicole.)

Baby-Name Remorse — What Do You Do? [CNN]
Earlier: Anns Get As, Barbaras Get Bs, & Christinas Get Crap
What Makes A Name "Sexy"?
The Most Popular Baby Names Of 2007...
Jessicas Are All Pretty Bitches

Are they hoping to trick society into believing their daughters are equipped with these attributes — by giving them traditionally masculine names? And do parents doom a son to a life of failure by giving him a "girl name"?

Masculine names are often associated with success, for instance, which might explain why parents historically chose androgynous names for girls. As for boys, [UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian] says that today "some traditionally feminine characteristics may be seen as desirable in men, like caring and giving." Given the desirability of those traits, at least for some, parents may be less shy about naming a boy Brooke, Taylor or Morgan than in previous decades, when the "feminine" connotations of those names might have come at a social cost — the potential loss of status, jobs or friends. Or as Aileen Nilsen, the Names Society co-president, puts it, "It's not a disgrace to be a girl anymore."

What's In A Name? [NYT]

In high school I was part of a group called the Getting Over Boys Named Matt Society. We had a website and everything. Though that has more to do with how common that name is—any woman born in the early eighties has some Matt story.

My one Jessica experience was in high school. Total popular, phony cheerleader. Nice to your face; raging bitch behind your back. I kind of enjoyed when she got dumped by her football playing boyfriend, the day after he swiped her card (at prom) and then proceeded to date her supposed BFF a week later. Bad boys names = Matt and David. Yet I couldn't stay away from guys with those names.

My cousin is a Jessica who disguised herself on her 12th birthday by asking everyone to call her by her middle name Elizabeth.Now she's just a pretty fucking cunt in a thin disguise.

Finally, a post I feel compelled to respond to because I've been screwed by multiple dudes named Jonathan...who sent me "holy crap!" (yes, not just crap, but HOLY crap) emails. Chris-es are players with sexual orientation ("Am I gay? Am I straight? Regardless, let's cease to date) issues.

Shit this is so true. One Chris I know is a total cheating man slut and the other one is really into white trash drugs and hurting girls. What the fuck is up with people who were naming their kids Chris in the early 80s. Though I kind of like Jessica's for being pretty and bitchy. What better way to deal with a Chris then to sick a Jessica on 'em.

Ur, doesn't Jessica sound eerily similar to Jezebel? I'm thinking of a two-faced Jessica, who goes by Jess or Jez.

I've only really known one Jessica in my life, and that was in preschool. I didn't want to go on the slide with her, so she BIT ME IN THE ARM.

As a blonde, hot, bitchy Jessica, I have to say: it's all true. And we know you're all jealous.