Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana: What to Name Your Baby Now - Softcover

Rosenkrantz, Linda; Satran, Pamela Redmond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031233088X ISBN 13: 9780312330880

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004

Synopsis

Quoted everywhere from Parenting to The Wall Street Journal, with more than a million copies of their books in print, bestselling authors Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran are the baby-name experts. In this fresh and expanded new edition of "the best baby-naming book ever written" (The News Journal), they offer irresistible lists of names you won't find anywhere else, along with their trademark wit and insight on the most important questions---and answers---for expectant parents:

Style: What's hot and what's cool---including Honest Names, Spiritual Names, Kreeatif Names, The Two-Syllable Solution, Word Names, The Exotics, and a Girl Named Boy

Popularity: The most popular names in America and around the world, and what
celebrities are naming their babies

Image: What's really in a name, and why Briyana spells trouble

Sex: What's it like for a girl to grow up with a traditionally feminine name like Abigail or Blossom; a no-frills name like Alice or Jane; or a unisex name like Dylan or Dakota? And are there any decidedly masculine names left for boys?

Tradition: A concise history of American baby naming, plus inspired ways to reflect your own cultural heritage

Family: Whose name is it, anyway? And other vital considerations

About this title

Review

For expectant parents, it's part of the tradition to pore endlessly over baby-name books searching for the perfect moniker. Names carry stereotypes, vary in perceived attractiveness (a blond bombshell named Gertrude?), and help influence how we see ourselves. As Sigmund Freud once said, "A human being's name is a principal component in her person, perhaps a piece of his soul." In Beyond Jennifer and Jason, Madison and Montana, name experts Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran present a baby-name book that goes far beyond the usual name lists and definitions. Satran and Rosenkrantz provide a thorough history of American naming traditions, discuss the psychological and sociological impact of names, and, yes, include list after list after list of possibilities organized into categories: popular names, old-fashioned names, comfy names, yuppie names, African-American names, androgynous names, Shakespearean names, unpopular names, creative names, mythological names, effective and ineffective middle names, classical names... and so on. Annotated with humorous notes, descriptions, quotes, and name-derivation definitions, the book is a fun and fascinating read even for those not debating between Gravity and Jane or Mason and Hendrick. --Ericka Lutz

From the Author

"In the decade since we've begun writing about names, the world of baby-naming has mushroomed from a sleepy little enterprise, with parents naming their children Jennifer and Jason and wondering whether there might be anything more exciting out there, to an adventurous and intelligent and style-conscious activity in which parents investigate everything from their family trees to names from their ancestors' native lands to atlases and even dictionaries for names that are ever-more inventive, individual, and enlightened."

--Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 031233088X
• ISBN 13: 9780312330880
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 432