If you are sick of the 20 ring tones your cell phones came with or you can’t get enough of Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” on the radio, the latest fad in upgrading your cell phone’s vocabulary might have some appeal.

Downloadable cell phone ring tones have already made a big splash in Europe and are becoming increasingly popular in the United States, says Samantha Kitover, senior in management.

“The word on the street is that everyone in Europe has cell phones,” says Gabe Davis, manager of The Wireless Store and senior in journalism and mass communication.

In the United States, a person must be 18 to have a cell phone under his or her name, but in European countries, people of all ages own them and they have become more like a toy, Davis says.

“People like to figure out as many ways as possible to make their cell phone unique,” he says.

Cell phone owners can visit sites such as personalringtones.com, mymobile.com, 2thumbswap.com and mobilesmarts.com, among others, to download their favorite songs or TV show themes.

Davis says copyright infringement is not an issue because only the melody line is used for the ring tone.

Mobilesmarts.com lists Bubba Sparxxx’s “Ugly,” Alien Ant Farm’s “Smooth Criminal” and N’Sync’s “Pop” as the top picks. You can even download your favorite Christmas songs, including “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls” and “Let it Snow.”

“You can make your cell different — you can express yourself by something that’s personal to you,” Kitover says. “I never take my ‘[Beverly Hills] 90210’ theme song off my phone.”

On personalringtones.com, more obscure titles such as the “Inspector Gadget” theme, Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby,” Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen” and Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” can be found.

With six different categories on personalringtones.com — Top 10 Newest Songs, Top 10 Most Popular, Pop & Rock, ’80s, ’70s & before and Themes — many should be able to find the ring tone that is just right. If the site doesn’t have your favorite song or artist, you can make a tone request through an e-mail. Once the site has added your request to their collection, they will e-mail you to let you know your song has been uploaded.

Most sites charge anywhere from 5 cents to $3 per ring tone, but some sites, such as mobilesmarts.com, are free, Davis says.

The process of downloading the ring tone onto the phone is fairly simple, but cell owners should check with the service provider to make sure the phone model can receive downloads.

U.S. Cellular customers have to be signed up for advanced mobile messaging and those who want to download off of personalringtones.com need to have certain Nokia models — 5165, 6190, 7160, 8200 and 3300.

To download a song, Davis says a person has to visit one of the Web sites, enter the cell phone number and service provider (Verizon, U.S. Cellular, Sprint) and pick the ring tone.

The ring tone gets sent to the owner’s phone where he or she can retrieve it, Davis says.

“In addition to being able to download ring tones you can download text animation, picture messages, screen savers, caller group icons and receive e-mail,” Davis says.

The future of cell phone capabilities and features appears even more advanced.

Kitover says people will be able to create their own ring tones; each number on the phone’s key pad will have a different tone, and these tones can be put together in a musical pattern.

It won’t stop there, though, Davis says.

“Cell phones will be able to take pictures, browse the Web, send and receive faxes and be used as a personal PDA.”