Thursday, April 21, 2011

A baby by any other name...

Fun with names - this is your rare and special opportunity to find the perfect name for your baby.  Just remember, he or she will be using this for a long, long time so think about all the implications such as likelihood of misspelling or mispronunciation by others, how it sounds with the last name, what associations people make with the name, its popularity, strength and "mature" vs "cutesie" style.  What is perfect for a two month old may not feel so good at 50, or even 16.


Looking for ideas?  Steal from the celebrities!  Well, some of them you may want to avoid, but some have a nice sound.  On the radio the other day I heard of a celeb couple who plans to name their baby Santa.  A little weird for us these days I think - hopefully the little girl won't hate them for it one day.   The Early Show online highlights a few of the good ones.

You can also check the popularity of names based on Social Security stats.  You can do it for the whole U.S. for a particular year (after 1880) or by state.  So for fun, check this site:  SSA.gov They have the numbers for 2009 but 2010 have not yet been released.  It may not surprise you that the top names were Isabella and Jacob, though Jacob makes the number one boy's name for the entire decade.  You can also search the popularity of a particular name (enter your desired years you wish to analyze).

I have a very common name for my generation so I checked Debra and Deborah.  From 1949 through 1966 Deborah made the top 20 every year and Debra was also on the list each year from 1956 through 1962 landing the number 2 position in 1956 (Deborah was number 2 in 1955 and these numbers don't even include the Debbies, Debbys, Debis and Deboras).  When you consider the cumulative totals of these names it's no wonder there are so many of us in the boomer generation! Best Blogger Tips

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the information provided to us, so we know a lot of things/.
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