emptywishes's Full Review: June Rifkin - The Everything Baby Names Book, Comp...
The announcement of an impending stork delivery to one’s parents generally leads to a fair amount of squealing, “are you serious”, and perhaps shedding of tears. If this package is the first in their family, and distance separates them from the future baby-to-be, this announcement is likely to be followed by a shipment of all sorts of baby-related literature. In my case, this shipment included a copy of June Rifkin’s The Everything Baby Names Book.
As can be expected, the book consists of two main sections, one blue, one pink, and follows the name-book standards. Each entry presents the name, its origin, and the meaning behind the name, as well as alternative spellings and variations. Names are presented in alphabetical order.
However, it seems to have more negative points in its favour than positive ones. First off, one can’t help but doubt the validity of some of these names. As part of a Franco-American couple, some of the supposedly-French names are completely unknown to us – Beale? Gillett? And sure Champagne is a French speciality, but far from being a first name. Can I really take the book’s word as truth and assume that Masahiro is truly a Japanese name?
Secondly, the book makes suggestions that seem absolutely ridiculous, such as “take a common name and add a prefix to make it original!” Hence such “creative” suggestions as Dejayson and Kayshawn. Eh…
The book also tries to mix it up by offering theme sections which take up a half-page every few pages, with themes such as “Astrological Names,” “Names by Profession” and “Pharmaceutical Names”, which features such soon-to-be classics as Allegra, Paxil, and Viagra! While these themes are at the very least amusing, there seems to be one problem – these sections contain both boy and girl names. Therefore, if the reader wants to take advantage of all the name suggestions which apply to the future child’s sex, he must go through all the pages for babies of the opposite sex as well, which just seems like bad planning on the author’s part.
Overall, as a gift I can’t complain too much, as my husband and I got some laughs out of some of the “interesting” suggestions. However, if I were making such a purchase, I would take my fifteen dollars and spend it elsewhere.
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