Linda Rosenkrantz - The Brilliant Book of Baby Names - What’s best, what’s hot and what’s not

5. Expand your view of creativity.Consistent with this new world of baby naming is the pressure lots of parents feel to be creative in their choices. Inventing a name or varying a spelling is great if that’s your style, but there are lots of other ways to be creative, and this book can help you explore them. Try a fresh international twist on a familiar name. Consider names you never even knew existed; you’ll find a wide menu of choices here that have never appeared in any name book before.

6. Look for a name with meaning.A name’s meaning these days extends far beyond the original ‘spear carrier’ or ‘God is gracious’. You’ll want to consider what a name means in terms of your family history, your individual experience, your personal style. Can you find a name that relates to your family tree? Your cultural background? How about a place name or a word name or an occupational name that signals something with personal significance to you? Explore what different names mean in relation to your sense of style, of history, of yourself and your partner. A name that connects deeply on several levels will resonate into the future for both you and your child.

7. Do your own research.Everything you need from a book may be here, but you might also want to gather your own intelligence. Visit your local playground or read the birth announcements to familiarise yourself with the naming trends in your neighbourhood. Find the most current popularity lists of baby names for both girls and boys at the British government’s website www.statistics.gov.uk. Depending on your needs and tastes, you might also want to look at our style-oriented books, Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison and Montana, and Cool Names for Babies and our ethnic baby-naming guides, Beyond Shannon & Sean or Beyond Sarah & Sam.

8. Put baby naming in perspective.Of course, we believe names are important. They telegraph messages about a person’s class, family, ethnicity, gender, creativity, intelligence – messages that you, as a conscientious parent, want to control. You want to do everything you can to choose the best possible name. And yet, let’s not get carried away. Books that tell you that a name controls your child’s destiny or holds the key to success are just trying to persuade you to buy something with little validity.

9. Have fun.Yes, choosing a name is a serious, long-term decision, but it can and should be fun and exciting. We want this to be the book you stay up late into the night reading. The subject of laugh-filled dinners and under-the-covers heart-to-hearts. There’s so much that’s frightening and out of your control about becoming a parent, you should enjoy this one aspect that has so much potential for pleasure.

10. Let us be your guides.Parents often ask us, ‘How do I know whether a name I like is going to get too popular? How can I find a name that’s distinctive without being too strange?’ Such difficult questions are at the heart of most parents’ search for the perfect name, and that’s exactly where we come in. You don’t have to somehow figure out or guess these things for yourself: Through our decades of research and experience, we know which names are coming into style and which are heading out, which old favourites are worth dusting off and which should stay in mothballs, what’s cool and what’s just freaky. That’s exactly the kind of information you’ll find throughout this book, leading you to a name you’ll love even more through the years than you do today, the name your wonderful child deserves.

The symbols in the book are designed to make it easy and quick for you to identify certain names.

The stars identify the names that are our recommended Best Bets – names we find to be particularly appealing in a wide range of styles.

A unisex symbol means the name can be used for both boys and girls, so that you may find a choice in the boys’ section that works for a daughter or vice versa.

There is much conflict and misinformation over the background and meaning of names, but what you’ll find here is the most authoritative material available. We simplified derivations, saying Scottish and English and French, for instance, rather than getting into such fine points as Middle English and Old French. We do identify African and Native American tribal derivations, when accessible. For consistency, names that are related to other names are all called ‘variations’, while shortened forms are labelled ‘diminutives’.

The main entry is usually the classic spelling of the name, with variations, short forms and international versions listed beneath. When there is a spelling variation that is commonly found – for example, the popular KAITLYN for the original CAITLIN – that has an individual entry as well.

Rather than segregating our lists, we’ve woven them throughout the book. If you’re looking for a name that sounds creative or one that means ‘strong’, if you want an inventive nickname for Elizabeth or a substitute for Dylan, you’ll find them all in one place. A guide to the lists is in the Contents. Within each letter, there is a selective listing of recent choices of celebrity parents under the heading Stellar Starbabies.

Armed with all this information and advice, we’re sure you will arrive at the best possible baby-naming decision for your baby, finding the one perfect name that you and your child will love forever.

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