Seeking cyber help in naming your offspring

By KATE FOREMAN

As a new parent it is inevitable that you will get many things wrong. But one thing you really want to get right is the child's name, and here the internet can offer a lot of help.

One of the better baby-naming sites is Baby Names, which includes a huge selection that may be searched by name or meaning.

The first way is useful if you already have a name in mind, or an alphabetical trawl through the name lists can be quite rewarding - even if it is just to discover names that you do not like.

For advice on the dos and don'ts of name choosing, try Parenthood.com which has plenty of interesting articles on this subject. It also offers an adequate search facility similar to the babynames site.

Another approach is to stick with the herd, for example at www.babycenter.com. You will find the most popular names in the Us in 2000 were Hannah and Michael.

But if you do not want your child to be one of several similarly named in their class, try out Name Chooser. This site lists the more traditional names but includes a list of new names that are both weird and wonderful.

Unfortunately, many of these seem to have been spawned by trashy American talk shows.

The best from the boys' list were Bunky and Enis - I wonder what his nickname will be? The girls' list produced Bunty (Bunky's twin sister?) and Bulma, which one hopes would not predispose the child to eating disorders.

For even more unusual names take a look at Nine Month Club, where you will find lists of strange names and the stories of how they came about. One of the best belonged to a little girl named Day Leigh - her surname is Story.

A rather amusing site can be found at Unusual, Unique and Creative Names, which has a brilliant feature called the Name-o-Rama. This creates names based on common syllables found in names.

Most of them you would not use to call your cat but it did turn up Dayus and Avian for boys and Jaidlina and Bethni for girls.

To discover just how important some people believe this naming business to be, check out the Kabalarina site.

According to the Kabalarians, it is deadly serious. Apparently, an unbalanced name can affect who you are and how you live your life. If you do not want to take any chances, then from $US45 ($103) the Kabalarians will provide a name report package, which includes a 20-25-page evaluation of the influence of your names.

If that fails to tempt you, then just use the free name analysis to see what sort of personality you will be inflicting on your child.

Do not panic if the name you have chosen is not balanced - my own analysis was totally off the wall.

Links:


Babynames

Parenthood

Babycenter

Name chooser

Nine Month Club

Unusual, unique and creative names

Kabalarians