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...

[NIcole]

Our son's name is Levi, it is Old Testament Biblical and means united. He's 10 Months Old. Not weird! It suits him.

[Julia]

Levi isn't weird. It's currently the 132nd most popular boys name in US right now. According to the Social Security Administration, there were 3,142 boys were named Levi born in 2007 alone.

Sunday isn't on the Social Security's top 1000 baby names list, but Levi certainly is.

[joy]

Are you mad because you have a name like MILLIONS of other women? Your name is ELIZABETH! Don't hate because your name says "boring", "unoriginal", and "run of the mill". LOL...Granted, some are quite outlandish and beg to be used as initials later in life. But Max, Emme, Levi, Maddie, Moses etc...are kind of "old school" if you ask me. I bet there won't be 20 Levi's in his high school class. How many 'Elizabeths' were in yours?

[Ryan]

Yeah, what's with all these crazy Biblical names, ELIZABETH?

[Elyssia]

My name was different about 35 years ago; it's taken from the Elysian Fields in Greek mythology, where war heroes went after death. It means paradise and I like it now, although I wasn't crazy about it as a kid.

People usually mispronounce it and almost always misspell it, but I don't really mind - I always correct them. So many people seem to know someone with a similar name (Elisa, Alicia, Elissa, Eliza...) so I can see where the confusion sets in.

My husband and I thought (briefly!) about naming our son Theoden (from The Lord of the Rings series), but decided on Benjamin instead. We love it and it absolutely suits him! If we ever have a girl, her name will be Amelie.

[MJ]

My name Is Maryjane, enough said!

[MJ]

My name is Maryjane, shall I continue ?

[baby girl]

Actually I like the name Sunday Rose.

[Claire]

I went through school with up to six other Claires. My parents named me after a family friend who was dying of cancer at the time. The name doesn't have some hokey whatever-you-want-it-to-mean meaning, and has a connection to my family. Much nicer than some made-up or trendy name.
Someone I know has two children named Shakira and Zoram. Those kids are doomed (and not because the mother has no class).
A tupperware party I was unfortunate enough to attend last year was staffed by a woman named Candy. I'm sure her parents thought it was cute, but everyone else thinks she's a stripper when they hear that. You be the judge.

[alimonster]

Erm...Hazel is a pretty common name here in the UK. By picking on anything vaguely un-American you do yourself and your country's reputation for ignorance no good.

[The Right Baby Name]

My personal favorite is Tu Morrow, daughter of Rob. There are definitely some bizarre celebrity baby names. Our website, http://www.theRightBabyName.com , explores how well names fit a family's profile--and what sort of positive or negative associations there are with any given name. (Interestingly, Sunday has a 54% association with felons, according to our data....) Please check us out and explore the site!

[Brian]

Most of those names aren't too weird. At least they didn't almost have my name, which if it was up to my father would have been Chesley (I could have gone by Chaz, but still *shudder*) Thank god my mom had sense and went with Brian.
To the Levi's out there - do you pronounce it "Lee-Vi" or "Leh-vee". I always read it the second way...

[Anastasia]

People always think I have a weird name. I was named after Ingrid Bergman's character in a movie. I could have been Ingrid, but I like Anastasia better. Not only does it suit me, but it means "Resurrection" which I like better than "Ing's Beauty". Who is Ing anyway?

[Tanya]

My 3 year old's name is Levi. It means joined together in harmony. I like the name and I don't think it is "wacky" at all. All common names probaby seem odd at first. I'm sure even Jennifer and Jason seemed odd the first time someone named their kid that.

[Elisheva]

Levi is a perfectly normal name. It is one of the tribes (sons of Jacob) in the Old testament. I know tons of kids named Levi.

[sophie]

recently in nz a judge over ruled a little girls name "talula hula the litte girl from hawaii" was her full name. then he cited other strange names people tried to name there kids. twins called "fish and chips" "benson and hedges" (a cigerette brand) "sexfuit" to name a few makes celebrity names seem normal

[Mistie]

Levi is a traditional Jewish name.