27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, but there are holes, March 20, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: 35,000+ Baby Names (Mass Market Paperback)
This book was interesting in its diversity of names. However, upon cross-checking some of the meanings, I found that many of them are inaccurate. This book is great if you just want a large list of names. However, I would suggest double-checking the meaning of the names you chose, especially if they are not "common" names.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It lists many names but it is not an authoritative guide., November 20, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: 35,000+ Baby Names (Mass Market Paperback)
This lengthy compilation of names is impressive until you look beyond the surface. Some names would be laughable if actually given to a child. Imagine naming your precious daughter "Tequila" or "Tijuana," for instance. Also, by including so many fabricated names and alternate spellings as separate entries, Mr. Lansky seems to be bent on attaining a quantity of names, rather than a high quality variety. Further, I question his devotion to accuracy when he lists the world-wide languages consulted. He includes several non-languages such as Brazilian, Peruvian, Ethiopian, rather than Portuguese, Spanish, Amharic and Tigrinya. Perhaps this shows his perception of his readers' knowledge? I conclude: this is an interesting list of names but by no means should it be used as an exclusive source of name origins or meanings!
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, But Second-Rate, November 1, 1998
This review is from: 35,000+ Baby Names (Mass Market Paperback)
Having read in the above hype about Mr. Lansky as being the "the #1 name in baby-names", I was expecting a good deal more than what I found upon actually reading this book.
While having more entries than many other baby-name books, "35,000+ Baby Names" is lacking and occasional inaccurate in the details of its etymologies. For example, as a speaker of Japanese, I noticed that the name Hachi is defined as "8,000", whereas it actually means only "8". In Japanese, "8,000" is HASSEN, not HACHI. Further, many names were listed simply as "American Indian". Given that there are even now several hundred different indigenous languages spoken in the Americas, representing historically a large variety of cultures, this is like narrowing the place of origin of the name "Edgar" down to, say . . ., Eurasia!
To its advantage, though, the book does include apparently useful advice and "Guidelines" to help parents decide on the best names for their children. "The Where in the World" section, which gives an idea of where the various languages from which many modern names originate are spoken is also interesting, though there are inaccuracies here as well. (Ashanti, an African language, is listed under the Native American heading.)
Overall, I was much more positively impressed with the scholarly quality of the book "The New American Dictionary of Baby Names".
I do not recommend this book.
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