Diane Stafford - 40,001 Best Baby Names

Contents About the Book Nothing is more personal than a name and the naming of a baby is taken very seriously by all parents-to-be. With an extensive, easy-to-use alphabetical listing of every boys and girls name imaginable, 40,001 Best Baby Names, unique among the plethora of baby name books on the market, also includes fun, individualised lists, such as: good names for race-car drivers, names that spawn nasty nicknames, names for children who are handsome or beautiful, nerd/dork/wallflower names, deathrow names, names for smart kids and much, much more! With 40,001 baby names to choose from, in an accessible, enjoyable format, 40,001 Best Baby Names is the essential resource for all parents-to-be. About the Author With daughter Jennifer Shoquist, M.D., Diane Stafford co-authored Potty Training for Dummies, No More Panic Attacks, Migraines for Dummies, and The Encyclopedia of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Stafford has been Editor-in-Chief of Health & Fitness Magazine, Texas Woman Magazine, Houston Home & Garden Magazine, Dallas-Fort Worth Home & Garden Magazine, Philanthropy in Texas, and Latin Music Magazine. Stafford also co-owned Health & Fitness and Texas Woman, and helped with startups of Health & Fitness in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Miami. Today, she writes and edits books and does volunteer work for Houstons Emergency Aid Coalition Clothing Center.

She has written hundreds of magazine articles.

For precious Ben, with all my love Your name. Those two words should make you smile. Nothing is more personal. Whether one-of-a-kind (Shawnikwaronda) or most-popular-of-the-century (Jennifer), your name gives you an identity that sets you apart from the twenty other kids in nursery school and labels you the first day of a new job. If your name is memorable or a perfect fit, people say it more often.

But if yours is hard to pronounce or difficult to remember, chances are good that you will go through life rarely hearing your Daphinola at all. Indeed, a name can affect the ebb and flow of your entire existence. Thats exactly why parents-to-be often give the baby-naming process numerous hours of list-perusing, head-scratching, and poll-taking. For a kid who feels stuck with an albatross name, life can be long and bumpy. While people with better names seem to glide through social encounters effortlessly, the name-challenged types are more likely to stumble and bungle their way through the jungle. If you have any doubt, note the baby-naming efforts of a person who grew up as Nyleen or Hortense, Huelett or Drakeston, and youll probably find that this individual will have offspring named John or Ann.

Just having a sibling with a tough moniker will nudge us in the direction of plain when it comes to naming a tiny, innocent baby. Whats the significance of all of this for you, the parent-in-waiting? You are dead right in thinking that finding the right name constitutes a major responsibility. This occasion is momentous enough to merit lots of discussion and lots of thumbing through the baby-naming book until you finally hit on itThe Right Name. Whether or not you want to admit it, you really and truly want your child to like his name. No wonder you feel awed by the job! Most parents fret and falter, marvel and malinger, worry and wondersometimes for the entire nine months of pregnancy. And thats because authors and songwriters immortalize names.

People in love grow misty-eyed just thinking of them. Names are glorified and mocked, loved and loathed. Youre looking for a name that resonates, one thats memorable and perfectbut not frighteningly memorable or overly perfect. Youre out to locate a name that is absolutely sure, 100 percent guaranteed, to have a positive effect on your little tykes life. For that reason alone, youre willing to give the baby-naming gig quite a few hours of over-analysis. We all want great names.

We all struggle with the thousands of contenders. Couldnt that little embryo give us a hint as to what name he would prefer? Is it better to be one of ten Davids in your class at school, or is it more of a challenge to try to pull off a quirky Ringo? Maybe youre already submitting name-nominees to the acid tests: Is it too cute? Overly hip? Brutally boring? And, whats wrong with just going with your gut? This is your baby, after all. So why not tag that little biscuit with the way-cool name youve had squirrelled away since your Barbie-and-Ken days! Have fun with the name game. Approach it with wackiness, high spirits, and good insider information. Stay on message, and dont let yourself get sidetracked by relative-schmoozing or movie-star-mimicking. Carefully assess the pros and cons of your finalists, and youre bound to come up with a winner.

And while youre at it, do weigh the fact that a name can shape personality, career, and self-esteem. And just as clearly, a persons name can be a lifelong drawback, as in the guy whose parents reversed the letters of their surname, and came up with an unpronounceable humdinger that made kids laugh at the boy all the way through school. So what happens to this kind of nuisance-name? When the man turns twenty-one, he banishes by deed poll that kookiness forever. What used to be Enord becomes the benign letter E. Also, consider any nasty connotations. soap All My Children. soap All My Children.

And, by a different, somewhat slatternly yardstick, who could in good conscience name an innocent baby girl Monica in the post-Bill Clinton era? At the same time, names can be an asset, a source of pride and distinction. Who would bet on anything other than a promising future for a Theodore or a Saul, a Grace or a Claire? Some parents get so confused that they throw up their hands and pick a generic name. That way, the child can make what he wants of it. (Think how many times youve met Anne, Patricia, Carol, Michael, Richard, David, and Mark.) Everyone knows what his own name did for him growing up (and what it didnt do). Maybe your parents envisioned a man becoming Prime Minister and chose Jim, Tony, Harold, or Alec. Or, perhaps, your mother had warm, fuzzy feelings about a good old boy she knew growing up, so you were christened Billy Bob, certainly well suited for country-western singing (or for tattooing Angelina Jolie).

Or your aunt loved the artist formerly known as Prince and made sure your birth certificate registered the eccentric Purple Rain. Boggled by mega-input, many parents toss around names for the entire nine months. And adding to the confusion is the steady stream of names offered by well-meaning grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, co-workers, employees, repairmen, and friends. Baby-naming can even become so daunting that perplexed parents-to-be waffle daily. And then after they have identified a few winners, a couple faces the key issue that often comes into playfinding a name they can agree on. Usually, the result is a rush to judgement on delivery day, when Mum and Dad are finally forced to choose a name in the maternity ward.

Basic attitudes toward baby-naming can range from frivolous and cavalier to serious and tradition-laden. One Houston mother with the surname Palms named her African-American son White so that each time he introduced himself, Im White Palms, he was greeted with a grin or a look of disbelief. The same goes for a Texan named King Solomon, whose name is so memorable that this author was introduced to him at age fifteen, and decades later can still remember the shock of meeting a very confident kid who actually managed to pull off that spectacular name. (Some children can make a traffic-stopping name a big asset. But, some cant.) A friend of mine named Jeffrey wore her boy-name like a badge of honour, growing up to be both funny and popular. But, another girl whose parents chose a masculine name (Christopher) struggled with the name lifelong, forced to live with kids ridicule.

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