I thoroughly enjoyed this book which my parents-in-law gave me in what I suspect is their latest salvo in the battle which erupted after my twins Farouk and Kylie's christening.

The information I found in this book helped me tremendously in my search for names. With their usual wit and flair, Rosenkrantz and Satran present what you need to know about British names, the most stylish choices now, and important issues about class. Of course, if you've ever read any other books by them, you know they're into lists, and­­sure enough, there's plenty of lists here. I find English names almost perfect­­elegant, cool, calm, mysterious, but warm-hearted. Although some (like Emma, Isabella, and Justin) have been used to the point of critical mass in the US, most are astoundingly fresh yet at the same time familiar and usable today.

This book will help you find a distinctive name for your child that others will complement him or her on but will not make him/her feel like an outcast. Most of the time, the names on the "upperclass" list are classics or at least names that will not go out of style, whether they've ever been well-used or not; and the names on the "lowerclass" list are, while not making a person with that name a lowerclass person, generally choices that are dated, overly trendy, or not very well-thought-of. And just watch: as American parents get tired of the Wonderbready top picks that they're choosing today, they'll be turning to names like these to save the day.

Other than Beyond Jennifer and Jason, I think this is Rosenkrantz and Satran's best book, and is definitely worth shelling out the bucks for. Great job, guys!

This book is for those with eccentric tastes who don't want something totally weird or made-up sounding. The English use some fabulous names; hopefully this book will inspire more Americans to follow suit.

I just received my copy of "The Baby Naming Journal" today. We are preparing to start a family, and I wanted to get ahead of the game, if at all possible. What a unique book this is!! I was thrilled at all the options suggested for choosing baby's name. I think the best part is that it's not just a list of names. It's an interactive project for the expectant Mom and Dad. The Family Tree section is wonderful! Not only do I intend to complete this keepsake for our first child, but I will be sure to purchase a copy for all our children!

I was so excited to discover this book. Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz are -- hands down -- the very best baby namers in the business and I have always found their advice to be extremely useful. Their previous books (including Beyond Jennifer and Jason & The Last Word on First Names) were far and away my favorite books when I was naming my first 3 children. Pamela and Linda are always funny and hip and all of their books make fine pregnancy reading. This newest book, though, is a real treasure. Not only is it a beautiful keepsake gift for us to be able to pass down to our next baby, but it created some special time for my husband and I to reflect on our family histories and what's really important to us and our future. It is a great book and one I will be giving to all the pregnant women I know and love.

Even though my upbringing was different from the author's, Linda Rosenkrantz's My Life as a List had deep resonance for me. The surface textures and emotional truths brought back and awakened, so many memories of early childhood. The idea of doing the book in list form is liberating and truly original, and as Joe Torre says on the back cover - It's really funny as well.

Linda Finch has written a lively, endearing, and rejuvenating biography that will take you back to your own roots, Bronxite or not. Her non-chronological life list is both warm and peppery. Vibrant little memory flashes weave an indelible sense of her World War 11 childhood in the Bronx and resonate with our own. My Life As A List is wonderfully laid out with an amazing number of family photographs which somehow, inexplicably, reflect the wry poignancy that pervades this fascinating and unique little book.

Boy is this interesting stuff! I doubt I would have gotten involved with baby names if I had not read this book, and now I'm as interested in them as the authors are. I think this is quite different from previous versions of BJ&J, and will give you the latest advice about avoiding trendy names. After all, the 94 edition will NOT tell you to watch out for Briana and Dakota. And there's new strategies here for finding new names and generally looking at the naming process. And it's fun to read! Other name books I've tried before are boring, and they're ALL THE SAME! This one breaks out of the mold and gives you practical hints and opinions of people in the know.

I came accross this little gem right before I got pregnant with my son. Bored with traditional baby naming books, the title to this one caught my eye, and boy am I glad I found it. I already owned the first edition which is also great, but this one contains new sections such as president's surnames as first names, and regular words as names. I agree that some of the suggestions were silly at best, but some were intriguing as well. Are you a writer? How about Story for a girl?

I think that every first time parent should take a look at this book before making that final decision on what to name their baby. I used to work at a daycare where we had three girls named Jordan in the same class. I'm sure that their parents thought that it was a creative name and had never met another little girl with that name before, but a quick look at this book will let you know that it's one of the trendiest names around. A first time parent who's not around children very much most likely doesn't know what's hot and what's not and this book is invaluable. We had been considering Taylor for a girl before we read this because we thought it sounded unique. How wrong we were! Now, I still think it's a beautiful name, but if I ever do decide to use it at least I'll be prepared for the possiblity that she'll have a couple of other girls with the same name in her class.

This is THE book to look at if you want to make sure that you pick out a name you'll love. We decided to name our son William Noel (Will) after much deliberation. William, while popular, is a classic name that will never go out of style, and my grandfather's name was William, so it has special meaning to me. Noel, we just thought sounded good with the first name. Before we read this book, we thought that William was just too common, but the book helped us see that there is a difference between trendy and classic, something that you would never get with a traditional naming book. I am forever grateful to Rosenkrantz and Satran for this GREAT book.

This book is the smartest, most useful baby naming guide around. We've been having lots of fun with it -- and it's leading us to some great names we wouldn't have found otherwise. Even if you've already bought another book on names, you've gotta have this one, too.

This book does offer opinions about names -- which are trendy, which are outdated, which are coming into style -- and that's what makes it the best name book around! First-time parents have no other honest guide to these issues. This book is fun to read as well as being instructive and enlightening. If you really want to find the best name for your baby, this is the book for you!

Unlike most of the people who buy Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana and its companion books, I have never used this book to name an actual baby but use it instead to name characters in the stories I write. I have always found it far more helpful in choosing character names than most other baby name books.

I have always had a fascination with names, and this book gives better detail about how names actually function in our world.

The only thing I dislike about this book is the authors' sense of which names are too dated to use, but this may just be a generational response on my part (I tend to think of names like Dorothy, Phyllis, Walter, and Raymond as so far out they're in again, whereas they just think of them as dated ). But overall, this book is an excellent choice for anyone who needs to name anyone else.

If you are tired of baby naming books that don't go beyond the origin and meaning of hundreds of names, then you will love this book! In it, the authors include trends and classifications of names that will help you to avoid the most overused choices. Of particular interest to me were the "So Far In They're Out," and "So Far Out They're In" sections which pinpoint some of the most popular names being used today.

This book will also help you choose a name that will suit your child, whether from the "Fashionable Classics," "Creative Power Names," Feminine or Manly," or any of the foreign name sections. I really found this book to be useful because it helps you to see what other people find attractive or unattractive in a name so that you can settle on one that will make you (and hopefully your child) happy.

If you prefer really different, or maybe somewhat bizarre, names then this book won't disappoint in that area, either. Suggestions for naming after objects, places, and soap opera characters abound...and you also get the (true, I've noticed) observation that more and more girls are receiving very "boy" names, while the same boy names are being used over and over for...boys!

This is a must-have book for anyone laboring (pun intended) over a name for their baby. The options, descriptions, and creativity shown here will really help make the job a little easier.

I liked most of the choices in this book. I found that there were good names that most people would probably consider, and I liked that they made it clear that certain names are just way too popular right now, and that they had positive things to say about lesser used names such as "Lisette" and "Rosamond."

I didn't like all the celebrity references or all the place-name references. I saw those entries as part of a new baby-naming trend and I'm not into trends, so those names didn't impress me.

If you're searching for a name, then this book is good, because there are reasonable suggestions in it. I would just have to say don't pay too much attention to the comments.

I was dissappointed with this book. After reading the reviews I don't really know what I was expecting, but what I got was almost entirely the authors' opinions. There are few entries with containing meanings and true origins, although they all have commentary on 'coolness'. If you just need an additional name resource then it's o.k., although there really aren't that many new names in it. But if you're looking for something with reference to a name's meaning and origins beyond a popular TV character or stars baby, then this books NOT for you.

For years now, Rosenkrantz and Satran have been the only real baby name book *authors*. There are a ton of books that compile name lists, but these two are actually good writers and not afraid to inject opinion and analysis. I gave this volume 4 stars simply by comparison to most of the lackluster alternatives out there -- but I was honestly rather disappointed. Some reasons: - This is NOT a new book, simply a new edition! Despite the fresh title and design, "Baby Names Now" is just an updated version of "The Last Word on First Names." I find this rather deceptive; if you have the earlier book, save your money. - Where were the copy editors? This is a surprisingly sloppy book, with lots of little factual errors that should have been cleaned up along the way. Hercules was not a Greek god, as one of the entries claimed. And Jabot is not a character on "The Young and the Restless" -- it's the name of a company! That's like saying General Motors is a popular baby name in Detroit. - Prominent uses of a name in the media are highly relevant. What low-level celebrities choose to name their own children is thoroughly irrelevant. I was frustrated by the significant percentage of this book devoted to informing me that, e.g., a CNN weatherman chose such-and-such a name for his third daughter. - Again in the wasted space category: far too many entries of names nobody would ever consider, just to say "don't consider this." Was there really a risk of thousands of little girls named "Sesame"? Yes, this is a fun book to read, and if you don't have the authors' previous books it's a fine choice. But I'm looking forward to something fresher in this category.

My wife Jennifer and I (Jason, believe it or not) received this book as a sort of gag gift. Initially, we found it useful for naming our baby. However, as other reviewers have mentioned, the book does not include much in the way or origins or meanings, if that is important to you. Also, the book seems to spend as much time detailing "bad" and "old" names as it does suggesting new, fresh ones. We also found quite a bit of repetition between the authors' various categories. Overall, we found the book useful and amusing at first, but I'm not sure it helped us to finalize our baby's name. If you are looking for a "traditional" or "conservative" name, this may not be the book for you. But if you want to go off the beaten path, I would think that this would be a good place to start...

I think of this as kind of a "companion" book for people researching names - I don't know that it would really fill the bill to be the one and only source a couple uses to make their final decision, but it really motivates you to put some effort into coming up with the most permanent gift you will ever give your child. Whether or not one agrees with the highly subjective evaluations the authors give names on many levels, the book provides food for thought on aspects I certainly wouldn't have thought about.

Plus: it reads amazingly easily - as opposed to 99% of other books I ploughed through, which became a chore.

One weakness: names from other cultural backgrounds. While these are included - and not just as politically correct oddities, but as valid and even "hip" choices - I question where they were drawn from or how chosen for inclusion. As a native German speaker, I was very interested to see the German list. Given that it was, as can be expected, small (for more extensive lists I would logically look elsewhere than this type of book)I was surprised at how many names were inlcluded that I had never heard of before - much less known anyone of that name. If the German list was so skewed, I would assume that other language groups were as well.

Innovative and interesting. Useful for those of us who want more than a list of names and their meanings. I particularly liked the analysis of naming trends and the connotations that names have.

I can't tell you how many baby name books I read before I found this. I didn't just want a list of names, I wanted help chosing, and this was the only book that was useful. It helped us avoid names about to be too popular and gave us interesting alternatives. Really, don't waste your money, buy this one first.

A very opinionated, very fun to read book. Does not give many meanings of names, rather the authors concentrate on how the names are perceived today. Has a lot of unusual choices - not for you if you love very popular names. Could stand to be updated now, but still my favorite baby name book ever!

This book was so entertaining and insightful. Sure, sometimes it was opinionated, but it's nice to hear a few opinions about a name anyway. I really enjoyed their perspective. It's a few years old, however - go with the new edition: The Very Last Word on First Names. Haven't seen it, but it's sure to be good.

Having Irish ancestry and also being interested in names I bought this book when I saw it in an Irish book display in a bookstore while I was shopping on St. Patrick's Day a few years ago and it looked good and I thought now wouldn't this be an interesting book for my collection of Irish books and maybe I will find some nice Irish names for any future children but the book though maybe having an interesting title is actually disappointing when it comes to the reading of the content, there are a lot of names and hardly any pronunciations are given and the few that are I have been told are incorrect and that makes picking a nice unusual Irish name that isn't used alot in the US very difficult if you don't know what the proper pronunciation is, in fact I totally fell in love with the name Mairead but only got embarrassed when I found out from some people from Ireland and Scotland that the two pronunciations this book gives for Mairead including the May Read pronunciation are wrong and they told me that the correct pronunciation of Mairead actually rhymes with Parade and even though I now like the correct pronunciation I am still a little disappointed that the May Read pronunciation is incorrect but I still would have liked to not have gotten the wrong facts about the pronunciation and felt embarrassed. I hope to find an Irish name book that gives pronunciations and meanings of the names, I actually think every name book Irish or the ones that include all different kinds of names should include pronuncitions and phonetically spell them out like in a dictionary. I rate the book 2 stars but really would give it 2 1/2 stars because there are some things in the book I like including the lists of Irish Saint names but the lack of info and the incorrect pronunciations prevent me from giving it 3, 4 or 5 stars.

This book is entertaining and makes a great conversation piece among my Irish relatives and friends but I have to be honest and admit that it's not very helpful or pratical with it's pronunciations or advice and I will be looking into buying some of the other Irish baby name books out there.

This book is much better than you would gather from reading the reviews. Although it's true, the pronunciations are not always correct, the book is an excellent source of interesting Irish names. There's also a section of names that are not used in Ireland for humans but which might appeal to people looking for an Irish-sounding name. The book also offers some historical perspectives not in other naming books.

Since Irish is a tough language to pronounce merely by looking at Irish words, it might be a good idea to get a brief overview of the language before wading through the names. It'll help with pronunciation. If you can't be bothered (who has the time?!), just double-check a name you like with a more official Irish source. That's what I do & it's no big deal. I really like the way the book is organized and I enjoy the extra info so it's well worth the price I paid for it, despite its few flaws.

This pair of authors has several other charming naming books. If you're a writer (or a pretender, like me), their little books are very handy.