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Willa, I checked my favorite desi blog, Sepia Mutiny, and they, too, are trying to figure out if Ickitt is a South Asian name. (I called my dad, but he'd never heard of it. "Maybe it's Tamil?" he suggested. A Google search came up empty.)
I love bonkers celebrity baby names as much as the next person, but M.I.A.'s holds a special place in my heart. I'm biracial, like lil' Icky, and naming me was a bit of a chore for my parents—they ended up going with "Nina" because it's nonspecifically ethnic and, perhaps more important, can be pronounced by all parts of the extended clan (no Rs or Ls to trip up the Chinese, no Ws and Vs to frustrate the Indians). I've often wondered how I'll extend this multiculti balancing act to the next generation, but maybe M.I.A. has the right idea—just put together a few syllables that sound ethnic, and call it a day.
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The maybe heinous, maybe hilarious polka-dotted dress was just an opening salvo. MIA's named her newborn son and it's a doozy: Ickitt Brewer. Perfunctory research (i.e., me IMing South Asian friends and asking culturally insensitive questions) suggests this is not a standard moniker, though a commenter on Perez Hilton, who I am obviously in no position to judge, claims, "I just spoke to my friend who is of Indian descent (M.I.A. is Sri Lankan, which is basically Indian [SIC]) and he said that it is an Indian name except she spelled it differently than the norm." I'm sure one of the tabloids will "get to the bottom" of this soon. In the meantime, anyone with any knowledge of playground tactics might want to do their kid a solid and not saddle them with the nickname "icky-poo" for the rest of their life.
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