There’s a somewhat snarky article from Friday’s Wall Street Journal about overanxious expectant parents hiring consultants to help them choose baby names that will set their little bundles of joy apart from the pack.

From the premise I was prepared to snicker at this breed of soulless neo-yuppies forking out thousands of dollars to professional baby namers, but for the most part, we’re talking about couples paying $25-50 for some input - not a lot of “there” there. Certainly not how I would use my disposable income, but that’s because 1. I’d rather eat out, and 2. I never wanted input on baby names. Not even from my husband, even though I started thousands of conversations with him on the topic. I pretty much wanted to name our babies all by myself. (But, alas for me, my husband insisted on choosing a label for #2. Good thing he has nice taste.)

Anyway, there are a couple interesting facts in the article. For instance:

In 1880, Social Security Administration data show that the 10 most popular baby names were given to 41% of boys and 23% of girls. But in 2006, just 9.5% of boys and roughly 8% of girls were given one of the year’s 10 most popular names — a combined decline of about 33% from the averages in the 1990s, says Cleveland Kent Evans, an associate psychology professor at Bellevue University in Bellevue, Neb. and a past president of the American Name Society.

The trend is away from family names and ethnic traditions; parents are choosing names that they like, that they feel will set their kids apart without making them seem weird, and in some cases, that are recent inventions:

So while a once-ubiquitous name like Mary has fallen from No. 1 during most of the 1950s to No. 84 last year, many new names are taking off. Nevaeh (heaven spelled backward) ranked No. 43 among the 1,000 most popular names in the U.S. in 2006 and Zayden, another recent creation, was given to 224 boys.

In the US, this is all well and good, but elsewhere, names may fall under government regulation:

In some countries, name choices are regulated by the government. France passed a law in the early 1800s that prohibited all names except those on a preapproved list; the last of these laws was repealed in 1993. In Germany, the government still bans invented names and names that don’t clearly designate a child’s sex. Sweden and Denmark forbid names that officials think might subject a child to ridicule. Swedish authorities have rejected such names as Veranda, Ikea and Metallica.

And the government of New Zealand has just blocked a couple from naming their baby “4real” (numbers aren’t allowed in baby names).

(Remember the Vietnamese dad who drew criticism from his local government for naming his son Mai Phat Sau Nghin Ruoi, which means “Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred”, the amount the dad had to pay for violating the two child policy? Good times.)

Generally, I think parents fret about baby names because it’s fun. It’s something to argue about that’s not earth shattering, and it’s something to obsess over that’s actually in your control. So fret away, preggos! And throw a few polls up over at the boards. We’re happy to indulge your neuroses. Most of us have been there.

Posted by MommaSteph.