We’ve got a little more than six and a half weeks to figure out exactly what this baby boy is called, and quite frankly, I’m stumped.
It pains me, because I have a list of girls’ names as long as my arm, but I’m simply running out of good choices for boys. Not to say that we don’t have at least a few contenders: I like Lucas, and Henry, and Myles, and Jack. I think my first choice might have been Jasper, but both Beloved and my mother laughed out loud when I suggested it. I love the name Justin, but it sounds way too much like Tristan. Papa Lou is lobbying hard for Max. I’m fond of Benjamin, but that happens to be the name of the mean-as-a-snake cat we had who died last summer. I’ve taken a recent liking to Charlie as well, and Quinn has a quiet strength that fits in nicely with Tristan and Simon.
There’s no lack of tools out there on the Interwebs to help you narrow down the choices. The US Social Security Administration releases a list of the top American baby names each year. For those who like a straight database, there’s Baby Names World. Want something with its finger on the pulse of the moment? Baby Names Buzz rolls up the most popular names by blog and Internet news references every week. For interactivity, I’ve not yet seen something as cool as Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager, although I spent the best part of a Sunday morning playing around with the Baby Name Map. (I found myself scanning through the database of UK names and finding a lot of good choices.)
Since we’ve been contemplating the name game, there have been plenty of articles in the media on the subject. The Globe and Mail had a good one about baby naming trends in general, and the NYC department of Health and Mental Hygeine (!) issued a press release on the top NYC names of 2006.
As if that’s not enough to overwhelm you with choices, think of the damage you can do to your child with the wrong name. According to Science Daily, you could be dooming your child academically with the wrong initial:
Students whose names began with ‘C’ or ‘D’ earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with ‘A’ or ‘B.’ Students with the initial ‘C’ or ‘D,’ presumably because of an unconscious fondness for these letters, were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals.
(Hmmmm, I’ve always been fond of Danielle, but I doubt if I’ve ever gotten a D in my life…) And once you narrow down your choices, you can always disaster-check your favourites against a bit of snark on baby-names gone wrong there’s Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing.
And after all that, the final verdict? I still have no idea. What do you think, bloggy peeps? What are your favourite boy names?