Barack Hussein Obama Anderson-Wilson?

With all the adoration and praise being heaped on Barack Obama as both a person and a symbol, it had to happen. People across the country are bestowing Obama-related names on their babies. Among them:

• Sanjae Obama Fisher, born in Hollywood, Fla.
• Benjamin Barack Kimbrough, born in Little Rock
• Sasha Malia Ann Taylor, born in Baltimore

One of the mothers followed election results during her 14-hour labor, and another watched the victory speech during her shorter one.

No one seems to have yet named a baby Hussein in Obama’s honor, despite the fact that it’s such a nice name. Sources say it means “good,” or alternately, “small, handsome one.”

In similar news, the wonderful web site A.Word.A.Day recently posted a list of words that sound campaign related.

• obambulate, a verb meaning to walk about, and using the same root as ambulance and preamble. Oddly, as one reader pointed out, this is also what John McCain did during the town hall style debate
• bidentate, an adjective meaning having two teeth or toothlike parts from the Latin bi- (two) + dens (tooth)
• palinode, a noun referring to a poem in which the writer retracts something said in a previous poem. Again, ironically, McCain might have wished many times to retract one or more of his choices
• meeken (kind of sounds like McCain), a verb meaning to become meek or submissive, from the same Old Norse word
• barrack, a verb meamnig to shout in support or against, from the Northern Irish word for bragging; also a noun referring to a building used to house soldiers, from the French baraque or Italian baracca