The Polls have closed and the 2008 Dumbest Baby Name Ever is…

Shi’thead.

Congratulations, Shi’theads everywhere. Your name is officially dumbest.

The Best Parent Ever is so much better than you because they have created an entirely new linguistic form to apply to their very special and unique (and better) children. It is the Dumb Baby Name.

Nearly 500 Dumb Baby Names were submitted by readers in our recent contest. The editors of BestParentEver.com chose six finalists for the following reasons…

Abcde (pronounced “Absedee”) — We chose this for the sheer laziness of it. Need a baby name? Just take the first five letters of the alphabet.

EPSN (pronounced “Espin”) — More like W.T.F.? And what if the parents suddenly start watching Fox Sports instead? Probably the only thing worse than having an unwanted name tattooed on your flesh, is having your kid named after a network you no longer watch.

Orangello and Lemongello (pronounced like they are spelled, but with a “jello” sound) — We like these names because they sound like dessert or after-dinner drinks. The advantages to this is that you can be in a restaurant, shouting at your kids, and the waiter might think you’re just ordering very loudly. The next thing you know, a dish of something sweet and alcoholic shows up. Best Parent Ever wins again! (Added bonus: the urban dictionary defines Lemongello as “a given name meaning your butt is the widest part of your body.” Orangello means “the mother of all flotsam.”)

Nevaeh (“heaven” spelled backwards) — There is a whole subgenre of Dumb Baby Names in which a perfectly normal name is spelled backwards. Why? So the child can one day see “heaven” in the mirror? Or are these parents just dyslexic? And what happens when you combine a backwards spelling parent with a plain old lazy Dumb Name Parent. Can the name “Edcba” (“Abcde” backwards) be far behind?

Xy (pronounced “Zie”) — Is this child named after their chormosomal contents? Who knows! It was one of many outstanding X names submitted, including Xyler (pronounced “Zyler”) and Xyz (pronounced “Zice”). Face it: English-speaking people don’t know how to pronounce names that begin with X. So even if you named your kid Xavier, you’re still asking for trouble.

Shi’thead — Pronounced “Shi’thaad.” Maybe in some parts of the world this is a perfectly normal name. But here it is just pure evil parenting genius.

The Best Parent Ever realizes that every precious sapling has within it a demon seed; a progeny that defies even their fine-tuned sense of domestic engineering.  That’s why some say “it takes a village to raise a child.”  Unless you’re the Best Parent Ever, in which case you say: “I’m hiring Parenting Coach!”

And why not?  Parenting Coaches are expensive, fashionable, and they clearly announce the superior qualities of one’s breeding abilities even more than that $1,000 stroller that just casually ran over your foot at the farmer’s market.

The rest of the procreating world may be asking friends and family — even Yahoo Groups — for help with childrearing challenges.  But this does nothing for the Best Parent Ever, other than shine a dim, energy-saving lightbulb on how they are almost just like everybody else.  And that just won’t do — not when the Best Parent Ever can spend a substantial sum of money subcontracting their nurturing duties to a complete stranger.

So take that, grandma and grandpa!  Your childcare suggestions are useless unless you can sell yourself as a highly-paid professional.  But don’t worry — “parenting coach” is a vague enough job title, like life coach, consultant, executive producer, or even vice president. Who knows what those people really do?  The Best Parent Ever does: a parenting coach is someone who proves, once again, that they are sooooo much better than you. (And by the way? Their “coach” soooo told them to tell you that).

For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!

The Best Parent Ever is better than you because they never cut their toddler’s hair. This is most noticeable amongst young boys (see above). Since when did all the Best Parents insist their male children run around playgrounds like miniature versions of long-forgotten heavy-metal stars and grunge bands? Hey, “Welcome to the Jungle Gym,” little pint-sized Axl Rose. That’s not “Teen Spirit” you’re smelling, tiny Kurt Cobain — it’s your dirty pull-up diaper! As for that three-foot high Eddie Vedder in the sandbox, he has one thing to say to you: “Don’t call me daughter.”

Whatever happened to haircuts? The Best Parent Ever loves defying convention whenever possible — especially when it makes their life easier. First haircuts can be traumatic for both child and Best Parent alike. Why bother with that hassle when the Best Parent Ever can just announce they have decided to “preserve my child’s birth hair,” which is just a fancy way of saying “I don’t want to hear my child scream at the local Snip-its.”

More importantly, though, the Best Parent Ever is hypoallergenic to all but the most fashionable and stylistic choices available. And let’s face it. Boy haircuts pretty much only come in two varieties: The Buzzcut or The Bowl. In a choice between The Blue Boy and The Dutch Boy, the Best Parent is going for the one with the long hair and culottes (that would be The Blue Boy, by the way).

So take that, rabble-rousing hair bands of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s! Your rock-n-roll, rebel hairstyles have been completely co-opted by a bunch of longhaired toddlers birthed by the Best Parent Ever. And that’s why the Best Parent Ever is better than you! Well, at least until that first lice check.

For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!