Baby Names Around the World (Paperback)

by Bruce Lansky (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This book contains more names from around this world than any other leading book -- over 50,000 names in all.

Bruce Lansky, the #1 author of baby name books in North America, has now created Baby Names around the World. Here are over 50,000 baby name choices for prospective parents, presented in an easy-to-use format with informative and interesting features, including

An index listing names by country or language;

Popular names from the 1880s through the of origin;

A list of things to consider when choosing a name;

The 100 most popular names for the 1990s;

Advice on how to create a unique name;

Lists of gender-neutral names.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Meadowbrook (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671316583
• ISBN-13: 978-0671316587
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #945,724 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not all I had hoped it to be, but still some good points, May 7, 2000

By	Erin L. Shepherd-Ham (Alaska) - See all my reviews

While this name book claims to list over 50,000 names, it is a bit deceiving. The 50,000 includes one name and its variant spellings listed separately, beefing up its numbers. It can be frustrating to find the meaning of a name, because so many variants are listed and only the original name has the meaning. On the bright side, this book does include a wide variety of names not necessarily found in other books and in an easy to read format. As one who enjoys researching names, I found the meanings to be brief and not all inclusive. I enjoyed the most popular naming lists from 1880-1990 and the top 100 list from 1998. It also has a name index by country/language, allowing a direct search instead of flipping through every name. Not a bad book to have in your library of naming books, but certainly not the only one to own.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Incorrect information in Baby Names around the World, August 7, 2000

By	Ivar Utne (BERGEN, Norway) - See all my reviews

In the lists of names from Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland about halv of the names are not first names. Many "names" are unknown as names and words at all. There are a lot of surnames. Ola is not a girl's name, but a boy's, and Bodil, Inger, Mette and Valborg is not a boy's name. Kari is not a typical Danish name,but a Norwegian. Also some misspellings.

For other languages I find that Charles is German, that Che is Spanish for José, Ivar is a variant of Ivor og Ivo, Yves is a French form of Ivar. Van (p. 381) and Von (p. 383) are short forms of first names. Mac is a Scottish first names for boys. All this do no correspond to my information from other sources. In the lists of German, French and Spanish first names there are a lot of surnames. But may be all the surnames in the English-list also is used at first names for boys?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Winner: the worst book of baby names I found!, May 10, 2003

By	Manny Hernandez "Author of Ning For Dummies" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Before becoming a dad (well, I will be one in October), if you paid to me I would have never guessed I'd be reading a book on this topic today, but you see: here I am, browsing through a handful of books off of the shelves looking for ideas. Here's our case: my wife and I wanted to name our baby with a beautiful name (how original, huh?) that is not repeated anywhere near (family and close friends) and that plays well both ways, in English AND Spanish without anyone needing to twist their mouths to pronounce it.

I had a chance to check out this book and found it to be a waste of anyone's time and one with a misleading title. After a few lists of top 10 and top 100 names under different criteria (which you can get off the Internet without much effort) it goes into a list of names supposedly from different countries that, more than names sound like figments from the author's imagination. Here goes the worst example of what I don't want to see anyone named: for a boy, "STARBUCK". This is an actual suggestion from the author!! I am NOT kidding. When I saw this, I closed the book. It officially topped the list of worst baby name books I reviewed today. I recommend "A World of Baby Names" or "From Aaron to Zoe".