Customer Reviews

The Mother of All Baby Name Books : Over 94,000 Baby Names

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

 

 

...and that's not a big compliment. Yes,there are over 93,000 names in here,but in usual Lanksy fashion,the book is cluttered with "kreativ spelygns" and created names (the K chapter is one of the worst-Krystalee,Krystalyn,Kyler,Kylynn,Kymber,Kymberlin,etc). People who are interested in these type of names generally don't need help in creating names. How much more interesting the dictionary would have been if Lansky had focused more on names from other countries (they are included,but the ones I saw were found in other-and better-name books).

I knew I was taking a chance when I ordered this book,but I was hoping for something other than Lansky's usual tricks.

To fill up this bloated book, the author seems to have crammed in any set of letters that could pass for a name. It's about as much help as picking random Scrabble tiles. You can't read it like a book, you can't browse productively...it's no help at all for generating ideas. Sigh.

This was given to me as a gift--I would never have purchased for myself. One quick flip through reveals its limitations. As another reviewer accurately stated, it is a dictionary at best. But most annoying was the author's habit of not listing the meaning for names, instead saying "a variation of..." causing one to have to flip endlessly to another section just to find a simple two word "meaning." My favorite was for "Nicole" where one had to go all the way to "Nicholas" in the boy section a hundred pages away. One of the most unhelpful resources of any genre.

This book is jam-packed with more names than I thought possible, but then again, the title promises the book contains over 94,000 names. No false advertising here; you get what you pay for. Data from the Social Security Administration was used to create the material, so families across the country have given their children these names, as unusual as they may be (e.g., some familes evidently have named their sons "Elizabeth" and "Megan"). If you're looking for a comprehensive list of names and won't be put off by the inclusion of unusual or unusually spelled names, then this book is a good choice.

I was very disappointed in the book. Many of the names are duplicates with variations of spelling and it gets very frustrating to read after a while. There may be 93,000 names but less than half of them are unique.

In this book the authors clearly wanted to boost the number of names as high as possible. After exhausting all the meaningful known english names (and apparently creating lots of new ones), they probably had no other choice than to "go international".

All right, this opinion comes from somebody who is fresh out of Hungary - the bigger half of the names originated as "Hungarian" in this book are not from our language!

Sooo... was the book still useful to me? Yepp, it got my imagination going... Meaning, it helped me to start inventing names too. So dear readers, how 'bout AMERIQ?

(My wife went with a different name though) :)

As someone who likes to read name books and one of the first name books I ever read being an older book by Bruce Lansky and actually having liked it I can now see why so many people are disappointed with his books. It's all of the kreativ (Creative) spellings, there's just too many of them. I would actually prefer to see more actual bonafide foreign spelling variations instead. That is much more unique in my opinion. Taking a common popular name like Michaela, or Madison, and changing the spellings to McKayla, Makaela, Mykaela, Madacyn, Madasyn or Madecin is not going to make a common popular name sound or look any less common or popular or unique, it will just look like common popular name that is spelled incorrectly.

For starters, I would like to say that I am someone who has a deep interest in names. I love to study names and find out their origins and meaning. People who seriosuly study names as I do find Bruce Lansky's books to be nothing more than a joke. His books have always been full of misinformation, but this book takes the cake. He claims that he used the social security stats to back up his claim that people named their sons Elizabeth and their daughters Matthew, but that is an absolute lie. Whenever traditional names like those appeared on the ssa stats, it was because of human error. It happend many years ago, in the 1800s..It's beside the point anyway. Names do not change gender or become unisex because of usage. Elizabeth will always be female even if 10 million people named their sons Elizabeth. I am someone who is a strong believer in giving girls female names and boys male names. If you are like me, you'll want to advoid this book. I sent an email to the editor of the book and they replied to me in a very unprofesional rude manner. I would never buy a book by Bruce Lanksy. He is a liberal whose agenda is to eliminate male and female names and create "genderless" names. I think people should celebrate their differences. Is their something wrong with a boy having a male name or a girl having a female name? If you truly want accuarate information on names for your baby, look for a name dictionary. They have more accuarate info. The older books are best. You could get them from your local library. Baby name books are good for a laugh, but if you accurate info , go for a name dictionary.

This book is a joke! It's missing 65 pages from girls names. It goes from P to V. Of course I am having a girl! I called Meadowbrook Press and they could NOT have cared less. They said that it's not their fault but the printers fault. I asked them for the name of the printer and she couldn't tell me! I told them that they are irresponsible since they published this book and it's MISSING pages!!! BEWARE OF BOOKS FROM MEADOWBROOK PRESS! THEY DO NOT STAND BEHIND THEIR PRODUCTS!

I like this book - it offers original and classic baby names with the meaning of the names included. It also gives different variations of the names. It is divided into two sections: girl and boy.