If you had siblings with exotic names like Maddox, Pax and Knox, Zahara and Shiloh, would you feel grateful for something more commonplace like Vivienne? Or would you conclude your parents threw in the towel?

If Brangelina were smart (and I do have hope on that front, relatively speaking), they will have made sure that “Vivienne” translates into something wonderful. For example, I have a friend named Sara who once asked her father why her siblings got such unusual names, and she did not. When he explained that “Sara” means “princess,” she was one satisfied customer.

Whoops! With its Venus-Serena ID switcheroo, in the “Greatest Bodies” Olympics spread, Glamour has walked right into the old black adage that all white people think all black people look alike. While it’s doubtful the blunder will necessitate another public self-flagellation — a la last year’s Afro imbroglio – it’s also important to note that Glamour’s gaffe will likely get drowned out in the blogosteria over The New Yorker’s Obama cover. More on that Conde Nast race incident in a few …

Pride and patriotism swell within when I see how the protruding-collarbone rage has been successfully exported to India, as has Vogue’s preference for light skin color. Notice the models’ milky-whiteness, compared with the little boys’ hawking their images in traffic for $2.50 a day. Another proud moment to emerge from today’s Times story about U.S. magazines in India: When Cosmo came to the subcontinent, the publisher was too shamed by her country’s conservative sexual mores to show Cosmo’s cover lines to potential advertisers. These days, “some of the features run in India have been racier than those in the U.S.” Progress!

Is pregnancy the new diet trick for the morbidly obese? Could be, says Annie Murphy Paul, in her scary Sunday Magazine story “Too Fat and Pregnant.” Putting aside the physical mechanics involved in impregnating a 600-
pound woman, I am presently attempting to grasp the emotional mechanics of omitting hot-fudge brownie sundaes from the prenatal experience. Nothing could be worse than that.