Whether it came from an honored relative, a character from a favorite TV show, or something far more inexplicable, your name can have a major impact on how the world sees you.

So you would hope your parents put some thought into getting it right, rather than just slapping you with something from their favorite geeky tidbit. But, as a current Twitter thread is showing, even professional scientists can be wonderfully silly when it comes to naming their beloved offspring.

Last night, Dr Jacquelyn Gill, assistant professor of paleoecology at the University of Maine and Science-Twitter celebrity, asked her fellow online nerds whether their research had influenced their choice of baby names.

And people aren't letting her down.

Penguins are definitely an awesome thing to be named after, but in the case of Adélie penguins, we just hope her daughter doesn't take after her namesake too much.

Some took a more subtle approach to naming their offspring...

... while some, uh... did not.

People were quick to point out the nerdy trends that seem to crop up.

That's obviously Charles Darwin, discoverer of evolution, and Ada Lovelace, inventor of computer programming, being referenced there. Meanwhile, some people described what might have been lucky escapes...

... or names which were inexplicably, cruelly vetoed.

Some shared the names they'd bestowed upon their non-human babies.

And is it bad to admit that some of them were actually kind of brilliant?

Basically, it seems scientists are just as likely as any of us to give their children bizarre names based on obscure fandoms. But at least these kids can grow up knowing they were named for something pretty damn awesome – and hey, it's not like science is going out of fashion any time soon (just please don't name your baby Plankton!)