Guest blogger JILL BARNETT discovers that yooneek names are more prevalent than she’d realized. And every bit as confusing. 　　On a beautiful Saturday in July, I found myself where most people would love to be on a beautiful Saturday in July: sitting in a painfully boring continuing education seminar, hopelessly...

　　When we published our first baby-naming book Beyond Jennifer & Jason in 1988, we introduced the idea of sibling names: that the names of your second, third, and subsequent children should “go with” that of your first.  Not matchy-matchy names, like Jane and Jean.  But names that carried a similar...

　　I’m looking for a short and simple middle name for my daughter, but certainly don’t want to go back to the tired old standbys of my childhood like Lynn and Lee and Sue and Ann. Any fresh ideas?There are loads of more modern and imaginative one-syllable options these days. Many...

　　Conceiving your child may have made you feel, more than any other step you’ve taken together, as if you and your spouse had finally and truly become one. Choosing its name can remind you that, nope, you’re still actually two. 　　There are all those people with all those names that...

　　Unusual names can be attractive, distinctive, intriguing….until they cross the line to weird.   Parents in search of unusual names often worry about how to stay on the right side of that line. 　　Here, five ways to choose unusual names that have all the best qualities of the genre and...

　　Ever feel like you’re a baby name klutz and that there are other, infinitely smarter baby namers out there who do everything right and magically arrive at the perfect name with no fuss or wrong turns? 　　Not true.  Here are the five most common mistakes even the smartest baby namers...

　　No sooner had we declared the death of such old-style middle names as Ann, John, and Marie – mere connective tissue between the first name and the last – than we started seeing the rise of a whole new generation of undistinguished middle names. 　　There are now officially enough little...

　　There are few things more thrilling in life than having your first baby.  But newbie baby namers are prone to making some mistakes that more experienced name choosers are able to avoid. 　　If you’re choosing a baby name for the first time, don’t make one of these 7 common mistakes:...

　　In our best fantasies, here’s how we name our babies: 　　MOM-TO-BE — Darling, I just love the names Susannah and Henry, don’t you? 　　DAD-TO-BE — Oh, yes, dear.  And I might also suggest Jane, after your mother, and John, after my dad. 　　MOM — What excellent ideas, sweetheart.  So if...

　　Canadian guest blogger and name book writer Shandley McMurray offers some advice on global baby names–picking a name that will travel well. (And those are her beautiful kids in the illustration.) 　　Growing up with a name like Shandley in Canada wasn’t always easy. I became tired of correcting people’s spelling and...

　　A few weeks ago we asked the Nameberry moms and dads to tell us their best baby names rules.  What followed were hundreds of suggestions, from the idiosyncratically individual (All middle names must be Celtic and begin with R) to rules so universal they might apply to everyone. 　　Rule Number...

　　Ideally, choosing your baby’s name is a fun, inspired endeavor, but too often baby name problems get in the way.  Here are the problems we hear most often, and how to fix them: 　　Your family interferes with your name choice 　　Your mom wants you to name the baby after her. ...

　　By Pamela Redmond Satran 　　How will you know when you’ve found the right name for your baby?  You’ll just know, some might say — but you might know that you know for sure if you experience one of the following 19 signs. 　　1.  Without even trying, you find yourself calling...