The Real Deal on Baby Name Meanings Without Losing Your Mind
I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant, sweating through a maternity tank top in the middle of July, when the great naming summit occurred in my living room. My mom looked me dead in the eye and said I needed to pick...
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...
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....
Top Baby Names: Picking One Without Starting a Family Feud
I was sitting at my kitchen island at 37 weeks pregnant with my oldest, eating dry cereal out of the box, staring at a yellow legal pad that looked like the diary of a madman. It was just a giant...
The Real Reason I Cried About My Baby's Name at the Hospital
I was sitting in exactly the wrong position on that terrible plastic-covered hospital mattress, wearing mesh underwear that I swear was designed as a medieval torture device, nursing a lukewarm cup of what the cafeteria boldly claimed was coffee, when...
The Bizarre Kat Timpf Baby Name Rumor & Our Naming Panic
You're currently staring at cell C42 on the "Child_Identifier_v3.xlsx" spreadsheet, blinking through the burn of blue light at 2:14 AM while your five-month-old aggressively tries to eat his own foot in the bassinet beside you. You've gone so far down...
The 3 AM Meltdown That Finally Taught Me How to Name a Human
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in mid-August, and the air conditioning in our apartment had completely surrendered. I was 37 weeks pregnant with Maya, wearing my husband Markβs hopelessly stained college lacrosse t-shirt, and I was crying so...
How The AGT Winner Jessica Sanchez Baby Name Wrecked My Math
Don't, under any circumstances, try to write a Python script that scrapes the Social Security Administration database to find a moniker with a mathematically perfect syllable-to-vowel ratio. This is a terrible way to name a human. I know this because...