TRENDY HAS A SHELF LIFE, MOM

Babycenter.com has released its list of the top 100 baby names of 2007. Mind you, it's a list of people who stop by babycenter.com, so it's self-selecting and not fully representative like a Census Bureau list would be, but it's the hand we're dealt at the moment.

And it looks safe to say that the nation is well and truly "-aden"ed out.

For the boys we have Aiden, Jayden, Caden and Brayden in the top 15, not to mention the bounty of increasingly ridiculous spinoffs and alternate spellings that will be driving schoolteachers around the bend until the next trendy batch of names makes its way into the demographic pipeline.

For the baby girls, it appears that moms are choosing between Grey's Anatomy characters, the 400-odd alternate spellings of "Caitlin", and...well...how to be delicate about this?

Strippers.

When you first work in radio, one of the things you don't expect to learn about are the customs and intricacies of the adult-entertainment industry - but the knowledge comes to you, willingly or no, even if your own particular show is as pure and wholesome as Pat Boone playing a pastors' convention in Branson. If you work in radio news as I do, you will have the knowledge inflicted upon you at a most inopportune time, because Mess With The News Guy is a time-honored morning DJ pastime. It often happens in the form of the DJ having their special guest Miss Cinnamon Rose perform her Dance of the Seven Riding Crops while the newsman is trying to get through a story on Condoleezza Rice's trip to Libya.

Bottom line, there are men to turn to when it comes to avoiding saddling your baby daughter with a name that'll be big trouble 18 years or so down the road.

I am one of those men.

And for the moms who chose names like Savannah (#37) or Trinity (#95) for their daughters I can only urge you to get down to the courthouse and pick out a Mary or a Susan or even a Mildred before it's too late.

Dads, you're not off the hook here either. Chris Rock may have said your only job is to keep her off the pole, but that job starts when the baby is on the way. If the mom-to-be comes to you saying "I want to choose something unique", that's line-in-the-sand time - because while mom was looking around for a "unique" name, so were many other young ladies looking for unique names to use on stage down at that tawdry little joint out by the airport.

And this is where you come in, dad.

You doubt my theories? Ponder this factoid: for much of the late 90's and as recently as four years ago, one of the top 30 most popular baby girl's names was...Britney.

I rest my case.