Product Description

Naming Your Baby is the essential A-Z guide for deciding your child's name. Much more than just a list of baby names, this book is a fascinating guide for expectant parents, as well as a wider reference resource for historians, writers and researchers. It contains over 1,500 possible choices, from Aaron to Zuleika, through the old-fashioned (Hazel and Gilbert), the modern (Jade and Devon), the unusual (Anselm and Tanith) and the most popular (Chloe and Jack). It reveals who has influenced the popularity of names, including film stars (Mia), biblical figures (Isaac) and fictional characters (Harry), and suggests why Chelsea, April, Rose or Ebony might be appropriate - or inappropriate! - for your child. Names with shared roots are gathered together in the same entry: you might decide against Helen in favour of Ellen, Elaine or Illona, or even need to switch at the last minute from Sean to Shauna

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125887 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Junior Pregnancy, April 2008
'every variation of every name...the old, the new, the modern and the retro, the ever-popular and the vogue.'

About the Author
Julia Cresswell is an established reference author, whose other books on first names include Collins' Gem: Irish First Names and Scottish First Names.

Customer Reviews

Happy customer
Very, very happy with this book. Spent ages looking at all the different titles then took a chance by ordering this one. Made the right decision. Format is fresh, easy to glance through or read in more detail depending on how much time you have. Plenty of names to choose from, modern, traditional, trendy, a few foreign names but not too many. Ideal for naming baby without having to trawl through crazy names or a multitude of American names. Within ten minutes of reading this i'd found a few good names. Perfect.

Name that baby!
Choosing a good name is so hard, but then you have a lot of books to help and then finding the right book becomes bothersome and... Well, you get it. So I am very glad to have run across this one which has helped tremendously!!! It is the definitive guide! A great read. Another good one: You Know You're Pregnant When. Reflections on the Longest Nine Months of My Life.

Intelligent and entertaining
There are so, so many rubbish name books out there. This is one of a very few gems (the only other one I'd recommend is the Oxford Dictionary of First Names).

It's full of interesting, and accurate tidbits about the names, which the author sometimes groups together in themes - for example, Alfred and Aubrey might be talked about in the same entry because both have meanings about elves. This doesn't mean the names are hard to find, though, as they are all ordered alphabetically. Just don't be put off if some of them say "See 'X'"; it doesn't mean they've been lumped in with another name, but that they will be discussed with them. This gives the book an almost conversational feel, as if you were listening to someone really well-informed talk about names. The introduction, too, is very interesting and makes it obvious she has done her research (she even provides a bibliography). I really enjoyed reading it and haven't spotted a single factual inaccuracy of the kind that other name books are riddled with. The only strange thing is that there are lots of typos in my edition. It's a shame that such a good book clearly hasn't been proofread to do it justice.