Top Chef celebribaby

[laminy.livejournal.com]

"Model, author and Emmy-nominated host of Top Chef Padma Lakshmi gave birth to a baby girl named Krishna Thea Lakshmi on Saturday," her rep tells PEOPLE.

Last month, Lakshmi dropped hints about her daughter's name, saying, "I am going to name the child an Indian name. It will be after someone in my family, so don't expect to see an Anglicized name – it will be a classically Indian Sanskrit name."

WDYT?

Comments

[a-tergo-lupi.livejournal.com]

I'm glad she picked an Indian name.

[mia-verita.livejournal.com]

I'm glad she picked a name that means something special to her and her heritage. :)

[arbus.livejournal.com]

i agree completely

[hwar.livejournal.com]

Okay, I like the name, I like that she used a Sanskrit name...but Krishna is a boy name! Thea is a sweet middle though.

[duckduckcaboose.livejournal.com]

Really? I know about 5 girls named Krishna.

[hwar.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I wonder if it's becoming a gender neutral name. I have only known boys/men named Krishna (and Krishna is a male deity in Hinduism). It does work as a feminine name in English since it ends in an "a". Plus there's the very American-girl-next-door nickname of Kris. Everybody loves a good boyish nickname on their girl in this country. :)

[duckduckcaboose.livejournal.com]

I guess it is kind of the intersections of culture. And none of the Krishnas I know are over 20, so it's entirely possible that it started becoming more popular for US-born Indian girls as recently as the early 90's.

As if to perfectly illustrate the whole thing, behindthename.com (the most accurate and least silly site I know of) lists Krishna solely as a boy's name, but babynamesworld.com (less research-oriented, more pop-culture oriented) lists it as unisex though more heavily male.

[hwar.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting to note the difference between the two baby name sites. Most of the Krishnas and Krishnans I have known were teenagers at the high school where I worked from 2001-2006, so would be starting to have their own children now...and all were first generation immigrants (so born and named in India). I wonder if that's a difference too...if Indian-Americans are more likely to expand the usage of a traditionally male name. It would make sense.

[duckduckcaboose.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I really only ever use Behind The Name if I want any kind of reliable data. Sometimes I think that most of the other sites just interpret stuff out of whatever baby name book happens to be lying around and then change it if they don't like it.

[spaceandclouds.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a boy's name too. It's pretty, though!

[beepandetch.livejournal.com]

Ew. There are so many pretty Indian names and she chose Krishna?

[beepandetch.livejournal.com]

Okay. Still ew.

[sageharper.livejournal.com]

Good for them using something that fits their heritage; I quite like it. :)

[wolfbane.livejournal.com]

I like Thea, but Krishna is definitely a boy's name!

[lovablemess.livejournal.com]

I think of Hair and Hari Krishna.