In the ancestors-with-funny-names contest, I win.

I'd like to submit my entry. I'm descended from Brizella and Elkanah and Herschel and Hyman and Lascelles and Phelon and Wendel and Zephie. I'm related to Nonaine and Shanga and Bonica and Gilette and Disdale and Hughgine and Kadeed and Kermit and Kiesha and Wentworth and Leston and Naisha and Querida and Shamari and Sheree and others.

I think I have a shot at second place, and I'm willing to submit middle names to back that up.

I also like Fiona, but our neighbors have one (which wouldn't necessarily rule it out, of course), and I love Maria and Miriam, but I don't think Dylan does.

I've always liked Chloe. If I had a baby girl (yeah, right) I'd name her Chloe.

While I think ita wins, I think I can get honorable mention for my great-great-grandfather, Colonel Maneus Lemley F. (Colonel was a name, not a rank), and my great-grandmother, Ann Hazeltine C.

t checks family tree...

Hmm... Thomas, Thomas, Thomas... Thomas.

Thomas.

Thomas.

t stops counting Thomases

Jabez and Theophile...

Damn. Just a pair. I'm out.

Ooh--I forgot about my great-grandfather, who was Thomas Junior S., as opposed to Thomas S. Jr.

My Mildred grandmother is "Mildred Alphonse" and we have Crowther as a male middle name on my dad's side, but I think that's as exotic as we get.

My mom, though, was reading a lot of Victoria Holt (I think) when she was pregnant with me, and was seriously considering naming me Laura Mai-Lon. (We're of completely Irish, British, and Scottish descent.)

My great-grandfather was Jesse James Lastname, because he was born in house the James was killed in, apparently. That's about as out there as it gets in my family.

Wait! I forgot Blomfield!

That's still only three, all from the 19th century, and only mildly odd.

Probably an insult, if you consider intent, because she kind of freaks me out! Though her food does look good.

It's her clenched, toothy grin that gets to me. I keep expecting her face to go like the girl's the first was posing as in "Conversations with Dead People".

Damn, looks like I missed the Food Channel chat. LOVE Alton. Have great fondness for Mario on Iron Chef, but he gets on my nerves on his own shows, especially the one in Italy with his pathetic side kick, but his food looks undeniably good. Marimoto I've always liked since his original Iron Chef days.

Bobby Flay and Emeril are capital-J jackasses, but what they cook looks good, and the food I had at one of Emeril's when I was in ( sigh ) NO (it was NOLA, his French Quarter place, so it may be back) was really good. I haven't been able to get much of a handle on the new Iron Chef America.

Rachel Ray is a case where someone put Meg Ryan's (or possibly Mr. B. Natural's) soul into Charisma Carpenter and gave her a cooking show. She's got spunk. I HATE spunk!

The hosts on the food channel I really loathe, though, is that pair of indistinguishable apmhetamined mannequins who do UNWRAPPED and SECRET LIFE OF...