I’m not going to rehash what I wrote; I hashed plenty in the column already. I do wish to address a similar issue which is this:

Either Le-a (pronounced: Ledasha) has entered the top ten of most popular girl names in the United States or this is an urban legend run amok. Wager on the latter, if you’re a bettor.

You’ve probably heard of these Le-as. Through email or on Facebook, tales of their name are abundant. Some unsuspecting nurse or teacher reads the child’s name and mistakenly pronounces it Leia or Leah, only to be admonished by the mother or child because, you see, the dash isn’t silent.

What you may not know is that these stories have been circulating for a couple of years now. Snopes – the urban legend debunking Web site – lists the Le-a story as undetermined, but casts doubt as to its merit. In the book Freakonomics, a chapter on how baby names come into and fall of popularity mentions the name and reports that a search of the Social Security database revealed no Le-as.

What’s amazing to me about these stories is that people swear to have first- or second-hand knowledge of actual Le-a sightings. Just a few weeks ago someone on Facebook commented that her sister was recently birthing in the hospital where a La-a was also being born.

(It reminds me of the Dog and the Dead Rabbit story that used to circulate. Someone, a personal acquintance of the person telling the story, noticed their dog playing with something in the yard. A closer inspection revealed that it was the neighbor’s pet rabbit. Dismayed, but not wanting to take responsibility, this person then snuck the dead rabbit back into its outdoor cage. Sometime later the neighbor came over and said that some sick bastard dug up their recently departed pet and put it back in its pen. Ba-dum-dump!)

Now it’s possible that there is a real life Le-a out there, somewhere; there’s no shortage of ridiculous names. Perhaps someone heard the story and decided they liked it. But if someone tells you that their neighbor’s daughter goes to school with a Le-a, tell them they better keep an eye on their pet rabbit.