The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby [Paperback]

Laura Wattenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2005

Yes, your baby’s perfect name is out there.
The trick is finding it.

The perfect baby name will speak to your heart, give your child a great start in life—and maybe even satisfy your relatives.  But you can't expect to just stumble on a name like that in an A to Z dictionary or on a trendy list.

That’s why you need The Baby Name Wizard. Created by a name-searching mom, it uses groundbreaking research and computer generated models to pinpoint each name’s image, examine its usage and popularity over the last 100 years, and suggest other promising ideas. A perfect guide to the modern world of names, The Baby Name Wizard will engage you from the first name you look up and keep you enchanted through your journey to the just-right name for your baby.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Why are there four little Olivias on your block? What kind of names would sound good with a brother named Dylan? Is George too old-fashioned? Is Dakota too weird? And why is Brianna now a more popular name for girls than Mary, Karen, and Margaret—combined?

The Baby Name Wizard is the first expert guide to helping you understand every aspect of a baby's name, from its image and history to nicknames and variants, as well as popularity and usage trends. The book's unique structure lets you start with one name you like and end up with a list of ideas tailored to your tastes. Each name has an entertaining buyer's guide–style entry to answer the questions:

• How popular is it? Each name is accompanied by a popularity graph so you can see where the name ranks among all boys' or girls' names and track its use over the last century.
•What else might I like? Look up any name and get a list of others with a matching style, including suggestions for boys and girls—ideal for sibling naming.
• How do people use it? Explore promising nicknames, international variations, and alternate spellings for each name.
•Where does it fit in? Learn about a name's distinctive style, from "Antique Charm" and "Old Testament" to "Brisk and Breezy" and "Nickname-Proof."
• How about even more ideas? To find out more about a name's image, turn to a full styles section and get longer lists of suggestions to spark your imagination.

Fun to browse and full of surprises, yet fact-filled and well organized, The Baby Name Wizard is destined to enchant.

About the Author

LAURA WATTENBERG is a writer, researcher, and software designer who developed the name analysis software after becoming frustrated in her search for names for her two daughters. She lives outside of Boston.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Reissue edition (February 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767917529
• ISBN-13: 978-0767917520
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (143 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Women's Health > Pregnancy & Childbirth

More About the Author

LAURA WATTENBERG is a writer, researcher, and software designer who developed the name analysis software after becoming frustrated in her search for names for her two daughters. She lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well written, informative, helpful and fun to read, February 10, 2005

By 

Ryan Dykstra (Grand Rapids, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby (Paperback)

My wife and I used this book yesterday to pick out our second daughter's name and had a lot of fun doing it. There are two main sections in this book. The first section gives great detail for each name including nicknames, variants, sister's and brother's names (what the author felt sounded like a nice match), style, usage timeline (a little graph that shows a period from 1900 until now and how often the name was used in that period) and a general description of the history around the name, significant facts and advice. The second half of the book categorizes names in groups like Saint's Names, 70's-80's names, Rugged Names, Place Names... The writing is funny, clever and helpful. The authors insights are keen and I felt like I shared her opinion on almost everything. Maybe everyone will, maybe that's just me.

One of the things that stood out for us when searching for a name were the suggestions for brother and sister names. We already have a daughter Alaina (Laney) and we're planning to name our future son Rowan. We were talking about how we like the name Jacey and when we looked it up, the suggestions for a sister's name included Laney and the brother's group included Rowan. It was a strange coincidence and it was enough for us to finalize our decision! We were also playing around with the name Kiera (KEE-rah) and found that the suggestions for brother and sister names also included other ones we liked.

This is a really nice informative book, fun to read and has a nice volume of names at 50,000 plus.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Baby Name Book Ever, November 30, 2005

By 

M. Wilson "just a mom" (Thibodaux, LA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby (Paperback)

This book is a jewel of a find. It's not exhaustive lists of names that make you cross-eyed after 5 minutes. I hated going through other baby name books. This one gives a graph of the name's evolving popularity over time, classifies the name in groupings, gives suggestions of brother and sister names for baby etc. It has much more features that you'll have to read. My husband and I named our second child from the suggestions for, say example, Mia. There were names that sound like they belong to the same family like Zoe, Lilly, Ava etc. And if you like lists, there's that too!

51 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars On the fence about this one..., May 26, 2006

By 

elviswoman (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby (Paperback)

Okay, so there are a MILLION baby name books out there. I went with this one because I thought it might give cool first/middle name combos or something. But really, it just gave a somewhat limited list of names along with their current popularity status and historical usage via graph. Then the book shows this list recycled by name-type categories (like "Timeless", or "Guys and Dolls", or "Greek"). So the variety i was hoping for wasn't really there. That was kind of dissapointing. On the up side, this book showed me that a name is not unique just because it comes into my mind during an "ah-HA" moment-a lot of names are being used to death due to this kind of thinking. Just look at Madison or Chase! So I did obtain a guideline of what not to name my baby unless I want him/her to be one of 6 kids with the same name in his/her kindergarten class. I found that to be useful information. If you are looking to make sure you don't choose something over-used, OR if you are trying to pick something overused so your kid can blame their credit on the other 6.19 million Brittany's, this really will help you make a great pick. But if you are looking for varied name ideas, you might want to go for one of those 75,000+ BABY NAMES books out there. Just my two cents.