I have been ordered by someone much wiser than me to go blog something fun. And I really need to because this has been a terrible, stress-filled week. So without further ado, I give you the new weekly feature for my little site:

What are people in my hometown naming their babies this week

Yes, I know I shouldn't make fun of people's names, but we all do it. C'mon 'fess up. You do too. And this is coming from a girl who for the longest was stuck on the following names for a little girl: Emily Lenore and Frances Scout. I wanted Campbell to be Jesse's first name instead of his middle name. Although now that we know a little more about our kid, we probably should have named him Calvin. And I'm not really making fun of other people's names so much as conducting a long-term study of what small-town parents are naming their kids. So join me now with our first batch of names from the Wednesday April 19 issue of my hometown newspaper (I'm leaving last names off):

Baby Boy: Lelan DaRay
Baby Boy: Ian Preston
Baby Boy: Justin Manuel Hernandez

Nothing really shocking there, but I think little Lelan DaRay is going to have to grasp the concept of lower case and upper case letters fairly quickly. And that name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

And as a companion to this, I'd like to choose a couple of names from the obituary listings. Because I love reading old people's names. Old people have the BEST names. People just don't name their kids like they used to. And why not, I ask you? There's nothing wrong with these names. From the same issue, we have the following names in the obituaries:

Isiah, who died at age 91. He was the last survivor of 11 (!) siblings. Check out some of their names: (brothers) Elvis, Ezra; (sisters) Delia, Gertrude.
Cora L., who died at age 81
Florence who died at age 76
Mary Edna who died at age 93
Mary Oledia who died at age 77

See, great names!