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...

Shanga is the only one that sounds odd to me, but still. Whoa. Your list is impressive, ita. Let's see... That I recall without dragging out the family tree, there's also Mourning Dove, Kezizah, Philida, and Vashti, and Clyde who was a girl - the only odd male name was Epaphroditas. Most of my odd ones are Biblical. The overwhelming number of Marys and Williams may cancel out the weird, though. Is "Zephie" short for Zephyr? I've heard that used as a first name.

edited to add, a man named Junior.

Clyde who was a girl

That's it! I was blanking on my Iva grandmother's middle name, and it's Clyde. So, two girls out there who were Clydes. Weird.

My OBC's father's name was Bleakley. First name.

Now, I love The Secret Life Of. Jim O'Connor is my secret celebrity boyfriend. He's just such a dork in that show, it cracks me up. I was watching one where the owner of Bartleby's in Harvard Sqaure threatened to kick him out of the restaurant for being slow on the uptake on the whole milkshake/frappe new england debate. Jim just looked so confused. He's always all, "That's cool! I wanna do it!" Half the times the food people are like, "uh, no." or by the time Jim finishes mangling whatever it is they specialize in, they wish they had said no.

I don't know why I find him so endearing, but I do.

Marc Summers, though, is like PlasticMan3000. Marc, man, you've betrayed your roots! (he used to host that kids show Double Dare and urge children to swim through slime for a Huffy bike or whatever)

Shanga is the only one that sounds odd to me, but still.

Really? That one at least has roots in ... something. She was named after the Yoruba thunder orisha Shango.

Nonaine? She was given her name because they came up totally blank. They elided "no name" and gave her that. Which was really funny until I learnt how long I was called "it" before I was named ita.

Wentworth -- well Wentworth Miller might bring that name back, but my cousin's middle names (Harry Hugent Sylvester Constantine George Augustus St. Elmer) will need more than a breakout Fox show to make them look normal.