Yesterday we got the news flash that Anne Heche named her son Atlas and last week we learned that Erykah Badu chose Mars for her baby girl. Do we smell the beginnings of a trendlet?

　　Yes,  some celebrity parents do seem to be intent on making little gods and goddesses–instant objects of worship– of their infants right from the get-go.  Names that were previously considered too powerful for a baby to bear (after all, Atlas did carry the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, and Mars was the Roman god of war) now seem to have descended from Mt. Olympus into the realm of mortal possibility.

　　Of course, Atlas and Mars aren’t the first mythic starbabies. Others include:

　　AURORA —   Nancy McKeon

　　CALLIOPE —  Patricia Arquette (middle name)

　　CASTOR —  James Hetfield

　　GAIA —  Emma Thompson

　　HERMES — Kelly Rutherford

　　ICARUS — Lucy Sykes (middle name)

　　JUNO —  Will Champion

　　LUNA —  Constance Marie

　　ORION —  Chris Noth

　　And there are lots of other names of ancient Greek and Roman gods, goddesses and muses that could work for a contemporary American baby, some of which are still commonly used in Greece, such as:

　　GODDESSES

　　APHRODITE

　　ARIADNE

　　ARTEMIS

　　ASTRA

　　ATALANTA

　　ATHENA

　　CERELIA

　　CLIO

　　DELIA

　　DEMETER

　　ELARA

　　JANA

　　LYSSA

　　MAIA

　　MINERVA

　　NIKE

　　PERSEPHONE

　　SELENE

　　TERRA

　　THALASSA

　　THALIA

　　THEA

　　VENUS

　　GODS

　　ACHILLES

　　ADONIS

　　AEOLUS

　　AGON

　　AJAX (beware the foaming cleanser)

　　APOLLO

　　AQUILO

　　ARES

　　CADMUS

　　HELIOS

　　JOVE

　　JUPITER

　　MERCURY

　　POSEIDON

　　SILVANUS

　　TRITON

　　VULCAN

　　ZEPHYR

　　ZEUS