Customer Reviews

The Melting Pot Book of Baby Names

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ellefson's book is sheer brilliance by virtue of the fact that she organizes names by country, male and female names, and gives the history of naming for that country as well as the meaning of the name itself. IN the back there is a key chart for the most common christian names, so you can find out how Peter is spelled in England as well as Hawaii. Great book!

I use this book more than any other when answering questions about first names at our library. The introduction for each country tells a bit about naming practices and lists the most popular given names. A well-organized book fun for just browsing and wonderful for those expecting someone to name.

I just borrowed this book from the library today. I was completely insulted by the author because she mangled the majority of the Vietnamese baby names. What makes the Vietnamese language unique compared to other Asian languages is that it uses the Roman alphabet. Moreoever, the words carry a completely different meaning when one changes from one diacritical mark to another. Ellefson not only mispelled the names, mistook certain Chinese baby names for Vietnamese name, but also misinterpreted a significant number of names in just the Vietnamese section. Like French language, certain words signify either masculine or feminine, for example 'ca'i' means female, it is not a name. She incorrectly misinterpreted 12 out of 46 female names, a 26% error rate. Worse yet, she misinterpreted 15 out of 51 of the male names, a huge 29% error rate. Just to name a few regarding the girl names, 'choy' and 'Ping' are not Vietnamese names; 'huynh' was mispelled as 'hyunh', 'Thi' as 'Ti'; 'Viet' doesn't mean 'destroy'. As for the boy names, she mispelled 'Vang' as 'Dan'. Nghia doesn't mean forever, it depends on whatever the next word is.

Ellefson seriously lacks genuine authorship in introducing another culture, especially Vietnamese. She is plainly inaccurate and culturally illiterate. She is very bold for charging buyer for this junk. If she is wrong when it comes to Vietnamese names, I have questions about her knowledge of other cultures' names. I would give her "0" stars if I had the choice. Don't waste your money buying this shoddily written book!!!

Creative book with some good meanings and a good start to baby names but not as factual as I really like so try an Oxford baby names book for truer meanings.

Baby name books are rarely anywhere near as informative as they claim to be. I have an early edition of this one. While it's interesting in its organization, and has some cool lists, some of the definitions are blatantly off, even to my eye.

The author's clearly tried, and as an indiscriminate collector of names real and invented, I like the book, but for God's sake don't treat it as an authority.

A wonderful reference guide for parents, writers and game masters of role playing games. The guide lists names by country of origin and a brief definition of the meaning. I've used this guide to come up with many names for the games I run, to fit the characters in the venue. Fun to look through as well, and easy to reference.