Sunday and Levi? What's with these wacky celeb baby names?

Fruit. Days of the week. Biblical characters.

What the hey is going on with all these strange celebrity baby names?

The latest unusual celeb baby monikers are Matthew McConaughey's son, Levi, and Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's daughter, Sunday Rose.

Levi is, according to the gospel of McConaughey, a biblical name and another name for the apostle, Matthew. Whew. Because for a minute there, I thought he'd named his son after his favorite pair of jeans.

The mystery of Sunday's name has now been solved by Kidman's dad's admission to the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Apparently, Sunday is the name of a famous muse (Sunday Reed) to one of Nicole's favorite artists, Sidney Nolan.

Kidman's dad, Dr. Antony Kidman, explains to the paper, "The name struck me as being a nice name for a woman, so my wife and I mentioned it." He added: "It was among other names being mentioned, but they decided that was the name they wanted."

Reed was a leading figure in Australia's early 20th century art scene, and she spent the '30s in a love triangle with her arts patron husband, John, and the painter Nolan.

Yikes. OK, that's not exactly something you want to explain to your young daughter.

Let's hope they wait until she's older before they go into the sordid details of her namesake.

Time for a look back at some other amusing and potentially emotionally scarring celebrity spawn names.

In comparison to some of these past whoppers, Sunday and Levi sound positively normal. Well, almost.

Pick your favorite! And the worst!

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise's daughter, Suri.

Richard Gere's son, Homer.

Julia Roberts daughter, Hazel, and son, Phinnaeus.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's twins, Max and Emme.

Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette's daughter, Coco.

Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith's daughter, Willow, and son, Jayden. Another son boringly named Will Jr.

Rachel Griffiths' son, Banjo. Which always make me think of the film, "Deliverance" and that banjo pickin' mountain inbred. Sorry, can't help it.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's kids, Zahara, Maddox, Shiloh and Pax and gosh only knows what the next two names will be.

Keep reading. There's so many more...

Nicole Richie and Joel Madden's daughter, Harlow Winter Kate.

Emma Thompson's daughter, Gaia, which means mother earth, or the eternal feminine power. Or something like that.

Arthur Ashe's daughter, Camera. Could have been worse. Could have been Kodak.

Penn Jillette's daughter, Moxie CrimeFighter. The mind boggles.

Erykah Badu's daughter, Puma (for the shoes?), and son, Seven Sirius, which is gonna get this poor kid some Sirius "Harry Potter" jokes for the rest of his life.

Ving Rhames' son, Freedom, and daughter, Reignbeau, who, throughout her entire life, will have to spell her embarrassing name to someone. Every. Single. Day.

Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's kids Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's daughter, Apple, and son, Moses.

Jamie Lynn Spears' daughter, Maddie Briann.

Christina Aguilera's son, Max Liron.

Tony Braxton's sons, Denim and Diezel. Poor kids sound like a clothing line!

Christie Brinkley's daughter with soon-to-be ex Peter Cook (yikes) is named Sailor Lee. As in "Hey, Sailor?"

Nic Cage's son Kal-El, which is Superman's real birthname on the planet Krypton. Oh, dear. Maybe he can change it when he gets older. Like maybe Jor-El Jr.

Did we leave any out? Add some you can think of.  To see more names, click HERE.

Photo: Brad Pitt has his hands full with Pax and Zahara. Got room for two more? Credit: WireImage

Comments

[stephanie]

you left out my personal favorite jason lee's son pilot inspektor

[sleekraven]

Yawn....

[birchtree]

Levi is a pretty common name, I know at least 3 guys named that.

[jack]

By dog, must everything be related to consumer products? Only a couple of the names are a bit far-fetched, viz. Freedom and Reignbeau (maybe apple, but could pass as a diminutive).

[jack]

Ah, I see. Censorship.

[KP]

I don't really see how Max and Emme are wacky names! Seems to me that J-Lo had some common sense when it came to naming her kids...

[umwhat]

This was covered in a book called "Freakonomics." Wealthy people tend to have more experimental names, and then they filter down through the social strata.

For instance, ask your Grandmother if she ever heard of the name "Heather" before 1980. She probably didn't.

[awful]

these stars are morons

[jake]

My favorite: Kevin Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn, named after the Batman character.

[Some Guy]

Where have you been? Unusual names have become commonplace among the "common people." Why should celebs be any different?

[Chris]

A lot of these names don't really seem all that weird. Furthermore, I can assure you having a commonplace name can be quite annoying sometimes (lived with 4 other Chrises in college)

[bobbie]

Levi is not that uncommon a name. My husband's great great grandfather was named that. Maddie, Moses and Max are other old names that are now being revived.

[Lance]

My favorite line from this article "Fruit. Days of the week. Biblical characters." Aren't most Anglo-Saxon names derived from Biblical characters? Where does the author think "Elizabeth" derives?

[Tracy]

Sunday Rose is a beautiful name and Levi is perfectly fine. It's biblical and another way of referring to Matthew.

There are a LOT of weird celebrity names -- as you referenced in your post -- but these two latest aren't part of that batch.

[SSCor]

Oh Great!! Now I have to change my son's name because its "wacky". I sure wish you'd written this article 5 years ago so I would've know . . .

Sorry Levi

[dksp]

Frank Zappa's Children:
Dweezil Zappa,
Moon Unit Zappa,
Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen Zappa,
Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa.

MUCH better than anything on your list.

[quelinda]

Ella Bleu - daughter of John Travolta and Kelly Preston.

Nico Blue - daughter of deceased rocker, Shannon Hoon

[Levi]

I wouldn't change my name for anything. I think names are important, and that I would not be who I am if I hadn't been named Levi.

[Jane Smith]

LEVI?! MAX?! These names are CRAZY!! Whoa.
Slow news day?
There were 8 Jennifers in my graduating class. Hooray for originality.

[ruta]

Well, you neither like interesting names nor pl;ain ordinary ones - Will jr. So what's a good name? Very few of these names are really "weird". Besides, people can change their names, easy peasy!

[Dan]

Seriously? This passes at the LA Times now?

Yeah, no one in the western world is named after a biblical character.

[pat]

I am surprised no one has mentioned George Foreman's kids names
Foreman has 10 children, and each of his five sons is named George: George Jr., George III, George IV, George V, and George VI.
At least with five daughters, Michi, Freeda, Georgetta, Natalie, and Leola, he was a bit more original.

[Odette]

My brother and I were given 'werid' names.He got Noel and I ended up with Odette. Both of us are in our thirties. Mine has never been common in the english speaking world but my bros was common in 1930-1950's. Banjo by the way was named after Australian writer Andrew Barton (Banjo) Patterson 1864-1941 and is found regularly in Australia usually as a nickname.

[Duncan]

In my high school days, any girl named Ashley or Chelsea or Heather or Brittany would have been considered outcasts!
As for my name, it ranked among the 700 most popular names for boys the decade I was born and has kept going down ever since. I changed it to John for 12 years of my life!

[razzo]

Uhh... Considering you're a JOURNALIST who is a WRITER for a living, you think you might have heard of the "outrageous" name "Levi" before..it's not Biblical "according to McConaughey"...its Biblical according to, er..The Bible?

oh I'm sorry I forgot...it's a Los Angeles paper...