The Baby Name Countdown: 140,000 Popular and Unusual Baby Names

by Janet Schwegel

A classic, the baby name countdown (over 120,000 copies sold) is now fully revised and updated for the first time in a decade. Featuring more names than any other guide and based on more than 2.5 million birth records, the book includes brand-new data, a new introduction, a revised section on the most popular baby names of the past year and decade, and updated popularity ratings throughout. Discover at a glance the most popular given names from each decade of the 20th and 21st centuries, meanings and origins of the 3,000 top names, and thousands of rare and exotic monikers. Whether your taste in names is trendy, traditional, or international, The Baby Name Countdown is the ideal resource for every parent searching for the perfect name.

464 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2008

Reviews

[Green Iona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I would have had this at the beginning of my pregnancy when I was look for names that started with certain sounds. I'm pretty much decided on a name already, but I might as well give this book a look. There are no name meanings but one can do that research on their own. What this is is just an extremely long list of names. If there were name meanings as well this book would be unreasonably huge. It seems like there are more names than I've seen on any baby name website. There are a lot of interesting baby name choices. I see exactly the kind of names I've been searching the internet for this whole time.

[Alison · Rating 1 out of 5]

140,000 names in one book is too many! I was totally overwhelmed. The only thing about this that I liked was that it confirmed that Allison with two Ls is a boy's name (my mom always told me this but I never knew if it was true).

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yuck. This is literally a list/lists of names - yep, 140,000 of them. There are no helpful meanings or discussions at all.

[Alissa Faust · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that this book has TONS of names. I only wish that it had the meanings of the names too.

[Lesli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would never recommend this book, it has no definitions, no nothing. Just a list of 140,000 names. It was pointless.