Tom Cruise to Brooke Shields: Celebrity Baby Names Are Stranger Than Fiction

I just don’t get it. I mean I get it, but why? Is growing up with constant (dare I say non stop) media attention not enough for these celebrichildren…do they really need to have such strange names. I give Bruce Willis and Demi Moore a lot of credit. In a way, they started this whole stupid thing, and at least they had the gusto to just make up names from thin air for their kids. “Suri”, the unfortunate name that the recent being extracted from the womb of Joey Potter (AKA: the former Katie Holmes or current love slave of Scientology’s favorite member Tom Cruise) was give, supposedly means “princess” in Hebrew and “red rose” in Persian. I say “supposedly” because I am taking Tom-Kat’s publicist’s word, and why should anyone think that Hollywood publicists have any reason to lie. Why didn’t they just name the baby Red Rose Princess Cruise- that’s just as unique and, I guess, they could eventually just call the little girl Rose.

I’m not really concerned with the fact that Tom Cruise threw a temper tantrum when his wife had to recieve an epidural, even though that’s probably more screwed up than naming your kid Suri. I am simply fascinated by the famous person’s need to give their children weird monikers. To put this all in perspective, let me share something with you.

Brooke Shields, who recently got into a public battle (dialogue?) with the Mission Impossible star over the merits of postpartum depression (when I say merits I’m not sure if I mean the existence of such a disorder or if Ms. Shields was just weak for “letting herself” get it- you can figure that one out for yourself), happened to be giving birth herself in the same hospital. This coincidence makes me think that God has a sense of humor, but it’s possible that he/she (God) is just a publicist as well. BUT ANYWAY. One would think that Brooke Shields, a fairly normal person who has fairly normal problems, and at the very least ISN’T a scientologist, would give her baby a nice Christian name. Right? Well, she named her baby Grier. This is what I think happened:

[Lots of pain, grunts, lamaze noises and the general sounds of child birth]

BROOKE: Aaaahhhhhh
DOCTOR: Push, your almost there!

[Baby pops out, it is a girl]

DOCTOR: It’s a girl!

[Everyone in the room is elated except for Shields, who looks suspicious]

BROOKE: What was the name of the Cruise baby?
PUBLICIST: (reluctantly) Ummm, Suri.
BROOKE: What?!? (furious) Boy or girl?
PUBLICIST: (sheepishly) Girl.
BROOKE: Well, well, well. We’re going to have to name this one…GRIER….notify the public at once

[The Publicist leaves the room, wishing she had gone to law school]

BROOKE: Somebody get me some Zoloft! Stat!

Now this probably didn’t happen exactly like that, but it might as well have. I don’t know what Grier means, other than it sounds like the last name of a plumber, but it probably means something nice like “strong” or “steadfast” or “dazzling tulip”. It doesn’t matter. None of these names actually matter. They are just letters and phonics, they don’t hold any big secret- they are not the bible code. They are amusing in a way that I might never be able to describe. It is completely unnecessary to know these things, yet I would feel completely lost if I didn’t. It’s like knowing is inclusion to some kind of global club with membership outshining Oprah’s Book Club by a 25-1 ratio. It feels good.

But then it also feels good knowing that Suri means “pickpocket” in Japanese and was also an acronym for what once was known as the Syracuse University Research Institute. Maybe that’s a sign that Suri will grow up to be a scientist, and not just a scientologist.