Very Best Baby Name Book [Paperback]

Bruce Lansky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2005

Very Best Baby Name Book, the #1 best-selling baby name book in the world, is now bigger and better. The most important changes are: more names (50,000 names vs. 30,000 names previously) and more lists to help readers choose (100 lists vs. 25 lists previously). You will find the lists not only fun to read but illuminating and extremely helpful for parents who want to pick names with strong positive associations and avoid names with strong negative associations. The new lists of names have been selected to highlight names with strong positive associations,such as:ú names that suggest intelligence and competence for girls and boysú names that suggest success for girls and boysú names that suggest athletic prowess and strength for girls and boysú names that suggest attractiveness for girls and boysú names that suggest a good sense of humor for girls and boys The new lists also highlight names with strong negative (or questionable) associations, such as:ú names that suggest stupidity and incompetence for girls and boysú names that suggest low odds of success for girls and boysú names that suggest an absence of athletic prowess and strength for girls and boysú names that give off sexual vibes for girls and boys' In addition, Lansky provides lists of names strongly associated with famous people in the arts, professions, science, and business, as well as names associated with popular names from the New and Old Testament and from literature and history. In short, Lansky has come up with the most useful -- as well as fun -- collection of lists available. In addition, this book contains a variety of helpful, informative and fun features, including: -advice on how to pick a name -baby name legal guide - the 100 most popular girls names in 2003 -fascinating facts about names - the 100 most popular boys' names in 2003 -stereotypes of name - celebrity name changes -popular names in foreign countries - celebrities' babies names No wonder The Very Best Baby Name Book is also North America's best-selling baby name book and likely to stay that way for a long, long time.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bruce Lansky has edited a number of poetry anthologies (including Rolling in the Aisles, Kids Pick the Funniest Poems, If Kids Ruled the School, A Bad Case of the Giggles, Miles of Smiles, and No More Homework! No More Tests!), and 3 silly songbook anthologies. Lansky created the popular GigglePoetry.com website for children and the PoetryTeachers.com website for teachers. He also created the Girls to the Rescue series, the New Fangled Fairy Tales series, and the Can You Solve the Mysteries series.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Meadowbrook (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684037637
• ISBN-13: 978-0684037639
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,961,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bruce Lansky is the #1 author of baby-name books in North America. His other name books include: What's Your Baby's Name, Baby Names Around the World, The Best Baby Name Book in the Whole Wide World, The Very Best Baby Name Book in the Whole Wide World, 55000+ Baby Names, 25,000+ Baby Names, The Baby Name Survey Book, and the Mother of All Baby Names. He is also editor of a successful series of humor books, children's poetry books, and children's fiction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book lives up to its name!, October 28, 2005

By 

Chris Sellick (South Australia,Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Very Best Baby Name Book (Paperback)

As I have bought the earlier and thinner edition of this book I am amazed at how much better this edition is.This book gives you the rules for naming your baby.Yes,there are rules for naming baby's.Dont want your baby being the local idiot just because you dont know how to pick out a name.

This book will give you guidelines on what to do and what NOT to do.This book will show you how some names have become less popular almost non existant over the decades.

This book is all about giving your baby its own identity and personality,and why.Covers the most important factors when deciding a name for your baby.This book tells you what you need to know.Even has several pages of famous names and their REAL names.

The only thing I dont like about this edition is the poor quality of paper it was printed on.Very poor quality.Thats the only thing wrong with this book.

I recommend these baby names books too:
1)"Whats wrong with every name in the book:dont name your baby".By David Narter.
2)"The new age baby name book".By Sue Browder.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Writer's Name Characters, Parents Name Babies, Read On, October 20, 2005

By 

Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Very Best Baby Name Book (Paperback)

I write short stories and my husband is a novelist, so we are always on the lookout for good names for our characters. If we see a good name in a newspaper or meet someone who has a good name, we write it down. For example, I just met a car salesman named Donovan Smith. What a cool name, so it's in my handy, dandy, little notebook. However, we write a lot and we're not going to find all the names we need that way. Besides, we don't want to get sued, so generally we make them up and for help doing that we turn to three reference books, books that will make the life of any writer of fiction a tiny bit easier.

I suppose every writer knows about Sherrilyn Kenyon's CHARACTER NAMING SOURCEBOOK. Ms. Kenyon's book starts out with a short chapter on the craft of naming, then she goes right into the name lists, giving her readers lists of all kinds of names from Anglo-Saxon to Welsh with thirty-three others thrown in in between, like Armenian, Celtic, Danish, Dutch and plenty more. She gives us both male and female names and their meanings and that's handy for giving good guys and bad guys names, because you can give your villains dark sounding mysterious names. This book is a must for writers. I really believe that.

Basil Cottle's DICTIONARY OF SURNAMES is also an excellent resource for finding names that we turn to a lot. Where else would you find surnames like Icemonger, Inger or Iorwerth. Great names here. However, I should say that there are only names here that have originated in the British Isles. There are a whole lot of them though, along with an excellent introduction of surnames and how they came to be. Mr. Cottle also gives us a brief history and meaning of every name. This book, like the one I mentioned above, is also a must for fiction writer.

And lastly there is THE VERY BEST BABY NAME BOOK, by Bruce Lansky, which we also turn to a lot. I may seem silly, at first, for a serious writer to include this book along with the first two books, but babies grow up and they keep their names. And there are 30,001 names in this book, names from everywhere in the world along with a few facts about many of the names. My husband the novelist actually uses this book more than the others. If you write a lot, then you should have this book too.

If you have all three of these books in your writer's arsenal, then you'll never need to look any further for a name, though good names often turn up in the most unlikely of places, so I'd keep that handy, dandy, little notebook if I were you.

All three books reviewed in one review by Vesta Irene

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book for those who enjoy searching, May 16, 2005

By 

Mama in CO (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Very Best Baby Name Book (Paperback)

This is the only book I bought when I was pregnant with my daughter and the only one I am using now to find a name for baby #2. This is a great book if you enjoy searching through names and their variations. I wanted to see as many realistic names as possible and I knew I wanted an uncommon, but not weird, name. It also lists the ethnicity of the name and its variations. My only complaint (and I have an old version of the book, so this may have changed) is that the book does not lay out the pronunciation of the names. Overall, I love this book and searching through it.