More is Not Always Better
June 17th, 2007
We’ve acquired several baby name books in recent months. A few people at work were giving away (or practically giving away) such books, and we’ve spent some time looking through them. Naming is difficult! Three of the books (that were free) were somewhat helpful and had names like “100,000+ Baby Names.” Each of the three books had over 50,000 names. Then we found The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby. I have no idea how many names it has, but I’m guessing it has far less than the other books! It has been the most helpful so far. My favorite feature is the list of potential sibling names (which is also helpful for finding “similar names you might like”). The other bonus is that it actually has little bits of info about each name beyond definitions and origins. If you find yourself in need of baby naming, this is a book that I highly recommend!
If you don’t want to buy a book, here are two other excellent naming resources based on the book:
The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager – when I first saw this resource a while back, I thought it was just about the neatest applet that I had ever seen! It might not help you come up with names, but it can help you see the popularity of the name over time.
Nymbler – this one is newer, and I first saw it only a few days ago. This is great for generating ideas for names you might like based on names you know you like. It’s just one more way to browse names until you find that perfect one.