Dear Past Priya: The Truth About Social Security Baby Names
Listen. You're sitting in the sweltering heat of the Target parking lot on Elston Avenue, crying into a lukewarm chai because an influencer just named her kid the exact moniker you've been hoarding for eight months. I know you're devastated....
The Truth About the SSA Baby Name Database (And My Biggest Regret)
I was 38 weeks pregnant, wedged into a kitchen chair that suddenly felt way too small, staring at a glowing spreadsheet of baby names at 11 PM. My husband was standing by the open fridge eating cold deli turkey straight...
Josh and Aubree Jones Named Their Baby Disney (And I Get It)
Dear past Tom You're currently sitting on the bathroom floor at 3:14 AM, using a cold, damp flannel to wipe what you fervently hope is pureed parsnip off your left shoulder. Beatrice (the twin who currently believes she's a domesticated...
Dear Past Tom: The Utter Chaos of Choosing Italian Monikers
Dear Past Tom (specifically, the deeply naive version of me from roughly six months ago who confidently volunteered to help my sister-in-law pick out an Italian moniker for her upcoming arrival), You're currently hunched over a lukewarm flat white in...
The Unfiltered Truth About Picking Authentic Celtic Baby Names
I was sitting in the cracked vinyl chair at Dr. Miller's office last Tuesday, bouncing a fussy ten-month-old on my hip, when the triage nurse popped her head out the door and yelled, "See-oh-bann? Is there a See-oh-bann?" A poor,...
Why we threw out the traditional gendered baby name playbook
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, sitting at the kitchen island at three in the morning, aggressively pointing out cells in a Google Sheet. My husband was asleep. The spreadsheet was simply titled The Child. Row forty-seven was the name Emerson....
Raising a Modern Indian Baby Without Losing Your Absolute Mind
I was elbow-deep in a pile of spit-up-stained laundry when my sister-in-law Priya FaceTimed me in absolute tears, holding a yellow tape measure up to a massive, heavily carved wooden cradle her mother-in-law had just shipped all the way from...
Where is Lil Baby From? Answering Your Kid's Hardest Questions
I was wrestling a shopping cart with a violently shaking left wheel through the Target clearance aisle, trying to decide if I really needed another wire basket to hold the junk I haven't sorted since Christmas, when my four-year-old yelled...
Finding The Perfect Baby Goat Name For Toys and Nursery Themes
My mother-in-law told me I had to do a woodland nursery because farm animals "smell like chores." My neighbor Sarah insisted I buy raw milk from her cousin's pasture because "commercial formula is a scam." And my mom just dropped...