The Name Game
When it comes to parenting matters like giving birth, warding off deadly diseases and teaching your kid to read, I'm all for seeking professional help. Parenting classes? (Thanks to Urban Baby for the tip!) Sure, why not? Raising kids in the 21st century is far from innate, so we could probably all benefit from a seminar or two.
But hiring a consultant to pick a name for your kid? I'm sorry, that is just lame. Especially when, for your $475, the consultant sends you a 15-page list. Thanks, that really narrows it down! And you end up with "Ava," a perfectly nice name but also, at the moment, the fifth most common girl's name in the country. You may as well close your eyes and point a finger at the top 10 list of most popular names. And send your money to someone who can give you truly useful advice, like me.
OTOH, there will always be the clueless parents-to-be who really do need a firm-but-gentle guiding hand. For instance, the New Zealand couple who wanted to name their newborn 4real. (the name police said no). Or the U.K. parents of poor little Autumn Brown, whose
full name, which left register office staff in Perton, Wolverhampton reeling is: Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.
(Mom likes boxing. So do mom's parents, who afflicted her similarly. Yet another example of the tyranny of tradition.)
Self-help tips can also come in handy. For instance, it's always a good idea to Google your choice, as Julie Tiedens learned when she typed her favorite name for a girl, Zoe Rose, into the search engine.
No, I'm not going to tell you what comes up. You'll have more fun checking it out for yourself.
The Baby Name Business [Wall Street Journal]
I was still stuck on Zoe Rose, though, so thank God we had a boy!