When we parse the annual Social Security list, we usually focus on the top names–what’s the new Number One, which names have made it into the Top 25, even the Top 100. But there are many names on the Popularity List that actually aren’t all that popular– certainly not commonly enough...

　　If you’re looking for some eye-opening  name moments, try browsing  through some vintage name books and you might be surprised to discover just how dramatically perceptions of some  names have changed over time.  In some cases what we think of as perfectly valid current choices have actually been written off as dead and gone.  Today’s popular Ava, for instance, was rarely thought worthy of...

　　Most people, name aficionados and ordinary citizens alike, have favorite names.  My own favorites are often the subject of  professional curiosity, with interviewers asking what my favorite names are and why. 　　The whats are easy: Eliza has long been my favorite girls’ name, and Joseph my favorite name for boys....

　　One of the last celebrity babies of the year, Baby Boy Bundchen Brady, spent his first ten days of life much the way one of 2009’s first celebrity babies did: without a name. 　　Born December 8, the infant son of supermodel Gisele Bundchen and quarterback Tom Brady went home from...