Baby Names

Agreeing on a name for Pooky was difficult, but it sure was fun (Pooky is not her real name). For some reason, we got quite a kick out of thinking up ridiculous names for her. Or, maybe I got a kick out of it while May put up with it. Either way, I enjoyed it and am happy with the result. I think most expecting parents obsess over this decision. After all, we want don’t want our kids to end up resenting us for what we named them. We’ll give them much better reasons to resent us later on. I wonder how Franklin Stuart Montgomery Carlson will feel if and when he finds out that his parents bribed blog commenters to come up with a name for him. Personally, I’d be okay with it.

But how important is this decision, really? According to the authors of the best-selling pop economics book Freakonomics, a baby’s name has little effect on her/his prospects in life. They give an example from their research of two brothers named Winner, who couldn’t stay out of trouble and spent most of his adult life in and out of jail, and Loser, who grew up to have a successful career.

It’s fascinating to observe trends in baby names. Here’s a list of the top 100 baby names of 2006 (link found via BloggingBaby). For a historical perspective on any particular name, I highly recomment The Baby Name Wizard, which charts the popularity of any name from the 1880s through today. It’s a bit addictive, though, so I wouldn’t try it unless you’ve got some time to kill.