After the birth this spring of her third child, a baby girl named Whimsy Lou, the lifestyle influencer Nara Smith posted a TikTok listing some of the names she and her husband liked but did not ultimately use. Among them were Tank, Clementine, Flick, Halo and Dew.
Francesca Farago, a reality television star, posted a similar video recently, including names like Heart, Ethereal, Prosper and Afternoon. Her husband also liked the name Orca, she said. (Ms. Farago vetoed naming her child after the killer whale.)
Baby names have come a long way since Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin made headlines for naming their daughter Apple two decades ago. In 2024, almost anything can be a name. A recent TikTok trend seems to offer a satirical critique of just how out there some parents are willing to go in search of unique names for their progeny.
The joke setup goes like this: “Normalize naming your kid after something you love.” Users respond with something hyper-specific that they would probably never actually name a child, like Diet Coke, Velveeta or “cheeky bit of work gossip.”
Emily Kim, a full-time baby name consultant, said the trend seems like a direct response to “how extreme” baby naming has become.
Ms. Kim, who is 33 and lives in Minneapolis, made a name for herself on TikTok thanks to her uncanny knack for predicting what celebrities and influencers will name their children based on their internet aesthetics. Last year, she correctly guessed what the football player Jason Kelce and his wife, Kylie, would name their third daughter, Bennett. (Ms. Kim said she knew it would be a traditionally male name, given the Kelces’ two other daughters were named similarly.)
