Come on down, Madison and Matthew!  You –

Whoa.  Um, there sure are a lot of you.   On second thought, don’t all come down at once, please.

As I was saying… Madison and Matthew topped the most popular American names in 2009.  Matthew is a classic, of course, while Madison has risen in popularity over the past decade.

Mr. Candy and I always imagined we’d name our daughter Madison until, well, we actually got pregnant and went to my seven-year-old cousin’s softball game where the pitcher, the catcher, the second basewoman and two-thirds of the outfield were named Madison.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But sure makes for an interesting game of softball.  As if seven-year-old softball players aren’t confused enough.

“Get the BALL, Madison!  The BALL!  The ball sitting on your feet!  No, not YOU, Madison — the other Madison.  No, the other, OTHER… oh, forget it.”

So, in the interest of our daughter’s future softball career, we named her Skylar.

The top boys names of 2009 were Matthew, Owen, Ethan, Jackson, Evan, Braden, Noah, Jack, and Zachary.  The top girls names of 2009 were Madison, Emma, Hannah, Olivia, Audrey, Isabella, Grace, Taylor and my husband’s one-time fave, Emily.

For the decade, the top boy names were Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Christopher, Jack, Daniel, Aiden, William, Joshua and Ryder.  For girls, the most popular names were Emma, Madison, Emily, Hannah, Olivia, Samantha, Ashley, Ava, Elizabeth and Madelyn.

Meanwhile, Candy remains a popular name with hookers and strippers, and Candace is a favorite among drag queens.  Woo-hoo!

A reenactment actor imagines how the baby responded to learning his name

Crazy:  A Swedish couple named their son “Q.”  Even crazier:  The government took them to court to prevent them from doing so.  Repeatedly.

Finally, however, the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court has overturned two previous rulings by lower courts and awarded them the right to name their son Q.

“Who are you?”

“I Q!”

Ha, haaaaaa! Oh yes, I’ve got a million more where that came from.

The higher court grounded its decision in the fact that “it has not been proven that the name Q may cause offense, or that it may lead to discomfort for the bearer of the name [...] there is also no reason why Q is obviously inappropriate as a first name.”

In other words, parents have the right to bestow their children with stupid-ass names.  (Somewhere, Apple Martin is nodding, “True dat.”)

The boy’s father, Rickard Rehnberg, was relieved they finally won the battle to name their Q-T Pie (told you I had more up my sleeve), and defended their decision:

“He’s been called Q almost since day one. He listens to the name and can actually say his own name. And if you read the law, you are allowed to be named after a letter.  The law states that you shouldn’t have the same name as a letter, but not that you can’t. He is a unique child and we thought he should have a unique name — then Q popped up.”

I’m sure other parents will be queueing up for this name now!  (I’m sorry, everyone.  It’s a disease.)

The boy’s full name is now officially Q Anbjörn Jackrapat Rehnberg.  Which, relatively speaking, makes “Q” seem not all that bad, huh?

A new study in Social Science Quarterly — which I never miss an issue of — claims the more unpopular, uncommon or feminine a boy’s first name, the greater the chance he will end up behind bars.

So just what are the top 10 “bad boy” names in the United States…?  They would be:  Alec; Ernest; Garland; Ivan; Kareem; Luke; Malcolm; Preston; Tyrell; and Walter.

That’s right!  Don’t mess with Walter.  He’ll cut a bitch for beating him in Scrabble.

Shippensburg University professor David Kalist’s report shows that “unpopular names are likely not the cause of crime.”   Rather, it’s the factors often associated with those names that can “increase the tendency toward juvenile delinquency.”  For example, boys with uncommon names are often ridiculed by peers, come from families of low socioeconomic status and face discrimination in the workforce, according to the study.

Oh please.  People warned my parents I would end up a hooker or a stripper if they named me “Candy.”  And look at me!  I NEVER dabbled in prostitution.

WOW!  From “Emily” to “Emma.”  How… different.

“The girls names we see moving up most quickly tend to be quite feminine,” said “The Baby Name Bible” co-author Pam Satran, “names starting with a vowel and ending in ‘a.’ ”

According to the Social Security Administration, the most popular 10 names for baby daughters in 2008, in order, are:  Emma; Isabella; Emily; Madison; Ava; Olivia; Sophia; Abigail; Elizabeth; and Chloe.

Meanwhile, topping the boys list for 2008 is the usual “Jacob,” which has been the number one male moniker for 10 years.  In fact, not a single name in the boys’ top five changed positions: Jacob; Michael; Ethan; Joshua; and Daniel all kept their places from 2007.  Because we Americans are original like that.

“Barack” wasn’t exactly close to cracking the top 10; however, Social Security officials believe “Barack” did set a record, jumping from the 12,535th most popular name to become the 2,409th most popular.

I’m proud to note that “Candy” topped the list in a special sub-category of names:  Baby Girls Most Likely to Become Strippers.

Woo-hoo!

And names?  Oh, we had the names all picked and ready to go.  A boy?  His name would be Drew.  Girl?  Why, she would be Miss Madison.

Again, with the preppiness.  I KNOW.  I know.

Now that the sangria buzz has long worn off and reality has set in… well, selecting a name for our little girl on the way has turned out to be not so easy.

My eyes used to glaze over when my seven-year-old cousin would tell me about her friends in class, because that’s the kind of caring relative I am.  Besides, hey, let’s face it:  all you need to do is distractedly smile and nod, and make armpit farts every once in awhile, and a seven-year-old thinks you’re awesome.  Rapt attention not required.  However, now that I am with child, I make more of an effort to actually, you know, listen to what’s happening on the playground these days.  And do you know what’s going on out there, my friends?

Every little girl in the world — nay, the universe — is FREAKIN’ NAMED MADISON!

Also, telling booger jokes to friends apparently never goes out of style.  Just a little tip from this parent-to-be to you.

So, yeah, “Madison” has withered on the vine, along with our sangria buzz.  Not that there’s anything wrong with choosing a hyper-popular name (read:  Candy is trying to avoid a barrage of e-mails from indignant parents of little, booger joke-lovin’ Madisons); in fact, we clearly think it’s a lovely name, but it’s just not the route we want to take anymore.

No, instead, we want to thumb through our stupid book of “60,000 Baby Names” and yell out names while the other person noncomittally shrugs, “Nah” or yells, “No way!  I knew a girl named that in high school and she was such a BITCH!” — till we become utterly delirious.  The next morning I wake up, look at my scribbles and wonder, “How in the world did ‘Shadow’ get on our list?!”  And boom!  We’re instantly transported back to square one.

By the way, it must be noted that the author of our “Big Book of 60,000 Baby Names,” which suggests the likes of “Pribislava” and “Cupid” for our baby, is the mother of a girl named JENNIFER.  Her middle name is probably Madison.

Although we do have a list of possible contenders, albeit a shaky one, Mr. Candy and I do not yet feel inclined to share the names with anyone, including our parents.  Naturally, this has landed us on their list — their shit list, that is.   What our family does not understand is that we do not WANT their input.  We do not need that drama.  Between you and me, we just can’t shake a baby-naming story that Mr. Candy’s colleague shared about her own name; a story so tragic, that all we can do is try to learn from it.  You see,  Mr. Candy’s colleague’s parents wanted to name her “Romney.”  The grandmother hated that name with a passion, so in an attempt to keep the baby from being named Romney, she actually BOUGHT A CAT AND NAMED IT ROMNEY in hopes of deterring them.  Yes, yes, she did.  Unfortunately for the grandmother, her li’l scheme did not work:  Mr. Candy’s colleague is named — yep, you guessed it — Romney, and Grandma Crazy ended up with a cat and a granddaughter named Romney.  Ah, karma and all that.

The moral of this story:   Wait till you pop out the kid, then whip up a pitcher of sangria — and the baby naming process will become a snap.  Until, of course, you wake up the next morning, look at the birth certificate and wonder, “Why in the world did we name our baby Shadow Madison?!”