A Girl Named Celica
Boing Boing features a story from the BBC's Web site about how US babies are getting branded rather than named - not burned per se, but saddled with the name of a product rather than something appropriate to a person. Among the popular choices listed in the 2000 census: 22 girls named Infiniti, 55 boys named Chevy, 5 girls named Celica, 7 boys named Del Monte, 49 boys named Canon, 300(!) girls named Armani, 6 boys called Timberland, and 7 boys that answer to Denim. Here's the question: Will companies start charging for licensed use of their trademarks? (Trademark law requires that companies police their brands or risk losing them.) Or will businesses start paying parents, or offering merchandise as an incentive, to bestow their brands at birth?
