Can I name my kid The Doctor?

I saw an article today about people naming their children after science fiction characters.

Granted, I'm a prime suspect for this kind of thing, but frankly I don't see what's wrong or new about it. I'm not saying we should name our kids ObiWan or Leeloo, but there's nothing wrong with a good Malcolm or Sarah Jane.

It's weird to me mainly because of the hypocrisy. In the olden days, people started naming their kids after Bible figures. I doubt that they thought God would love them better than kids named after flowers. I think it was because those were the stories that people connected to, that they believed in, that they cared deeply about. And the people in those stories had certain virtues that would hopefully be passed on to those sharing their names.

Why on Earth is the Bible the only book you are allowed to do that with? If the Bible speaks to you, you can name your kid Hezekiah and it's fine. If it's something like A Tale of Two Cities or Merchant of Venice, you can have maybe a Sydney or a Portia and it's eccentric. God forbid you're inspired by Ender's Game or Dune -- never mind that Andrew and Paul are perfectly acceptable Biblical names; it's the dark stain of science fiction that makes them verboten.

And that makes it painfully clear that it isn't the names, it's the reason behind them that is apparently so shocking. The examples the article gives are Neo, Trinity, Willow, and Xander. I know people named Xander, born pre-Whedon (short for Alexander). Willow is just as normal as Rose or Holly. But because it's from a tv show (a genre one at that), it becomes something shameful you've saddled your children with that will get them beat up on the playground.

I don't buy it.

We name our children after the stories that we connect to. In olden days that was folklore and Biblical stories. Now, it's television and film. Just because our culture has moved technologically doesn't mean it has in any way lost its power or resonance. A good story is a good story, in 2000 BC or AD.

Elijah was a prophet. He was bald. When children made fun of him, he called on the wrath of God to strike them down.

Personally, I'd rather name my kid after Elijah Bailey from Asimov's Caves of Steel. At least he wasn't a jackass.