21 Ways To Find The Perfect Name For Your Baby
There are tens of thousands of names. Which is the right one for your baby?
1. Use this Tinder-inspired app to pick a name without fighting with your partner.
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Babyname lets you swipe right if you like a name (and left if you don't) until you and your partner find a match.
2. Name your baby after one of your favorite characters.
Enough people explored this baby-naming strategy last year that Nameberry.com predicted The Hunger Games' Katniss would be the 14th most popular name of 2014.
3. Bestow your baby with a name that comes with automatic hipster cred.
Django? India? Kale? Find a full list of casually cool hipster names here.
4. Use Nymbler, a website that learns your preferences and suggests names that fit your taste.
"Block" the names you don't like and "heart" the ones do and you'll be on your way.
5. Hire a baby name consultant.
Why use a consultant? The people at My Name for Life say "it is a personal, private, no-pressure way of getting honest advice and wonderful name suggestions from a respected baby naming professional with experience researching names, writing names, picking names and solving naming dilemmas."
6. Name your baby after a location.
Dallas, Brooklyn, and Sydney are but a few location-inspired names that are rising in popularity.
7. You can also name your baby after an especially meaningful moment in your life.
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Ed Sheeran Instagrammed a letter he received from a couple who named their baby girl "Eddie" because she was conceived after one of his concerts. That's a sweet story, but you might not want to saddle your baby with a name that forever reminds them of you and your partner getting frisky.
8. Name two kids at once.
If you're having twins, you might want to look for names that go together. Jack and Jill, for example, would be a memorable way to name boy/girl fraternal twins.
9. Search your family tree.
Did someone in your family chart your genealogy? If so, ask for a copy — the perfect name may be hidden six generations back.
10. Name your baby Quinoa...and score a $10,000 gift card.
In celebration of its new Quinoa bowls, BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is offering a $10,000 gift card to the first parents to name their baby Quinoa.
11. Hire an astrologist to help you pick a name with positive vibrations.
Astrologist R Nageswara Rao can help you find the right name based on your baby's birth star. Learn more here.
12. Give your baby one of the most popular baby names of 2015.
Baby names website Nameberry compiled a list of the names that are so hot right now by analyzing which names in their database have been searched the most in 2015.
13. Go with a word name.
A new trend is to name your baby after a word like "Lark," "Arrow," or "Truth." Find a list of intriguing word names here.
14. Throw a "naming party."
This is especially helpful if you have a list of potential names you like but can't settle on one. Invite over a group of trusted friends, ply them with good food and drink, and let them pick the winner!
15. You can also poll your friends and family over the internet.
Create a baby name poll here.
16. Give your baby a popular name from around the world.
Combing through this list of popular names from around the world might very well help you find the right name. For example, you might not think of a beautiful name like Anastasia unless you read a list of the top names in Ukraine.
17. Give your baby the name that is as popular today as yours was when you were born.
Actor Kristen Bell recently named her daughter Delta, but if she used this cool interactive she might have been inspired to name her Savannah, which is the 39th most popular name today, as "Kristen" was in 1980, the year she was born.
18. Consider names that come with great nicknames.
19. Give your baby the most popular name of 1990, or 1966, or 1918, or...
The Social Security website lets you search the most popular baby names of every year all the way back to 1880. The most popular names in 1880? John and Mary.
20. Use the app that helps you find exactly what you're looking for.
Baby Names has over 30,000 names to search through, and lets you customize your searches. So, if you know you want a name that starts with an "S" and means "princess," you can search that! (FYI, there are actually a number of names that fit that description, like Sabrina, Sadie, Sally, and Sarah.)
21. Wait for inspiration to strike when your baby is born and you first see their little face.
Be warned, though. A new report in the journal Pediatrics found that not naming your baby right away increases their risk of falling victim to a medical mistake.
22.
Nameberry.com predicted the popularity of "Katniss" based on the number of times the name was searched on its website. An earlier version of this post misstated its actual popularity.