I have loved names for as long as I remember.  As a child, I had a notebook where I would write down names for all the future children I planned on having (at one point I said I wanted nine…. this was clearly before I had any sense of what labor and raising children was like).  I still have those old notebooks buried in the closet of my old room at my mother’s house, and it’s funny to look back at what names I loved at the age of five (Lavendar), to nine (Destiny), to fifteen (Victoria Ashley), and the fact that my lists were 99% girl names.

When I was younger I had no one to talk and share names with. Most of my friends weren’t and still aren’t interested in names unless they have a need for them, whereas I love finding names, falling in love with new ones, and dreaming of the possibilities of using them one day (there are always more pets to be had after children!). When I got older I discovered name forums — finally a place to discuss names, talk about name possibilities and combinations. I lingered around these boards for a long time so I thought I would share some of my favorite naming resources, how I picked Drake and Juliet’s names, as well as what names I still hope to use.

Baby Naming Wizard– Lauren Wattenberg, in my opinion, is the end-all be-all when it comes to names. Her website is like a name lover’s paradise.  Laura herself is a self-admitted name lover, but while people like me just keep notebooks filled with names we like, Laura took it to a whole new level with her research and charts.  I have watched Baby Naming Wizard grow from a small site where Laura blogged about name trends, made predictions of what names were rising and falling, the history of how a name evolved or went from a boy name to a girl name and vice versa to the Mecca of all naming sites.  The most amazing thing on her site that I loved was her Name Voyager which allows you to plug in any name and track its popularity and from the 1900s to current day.  For someone like myself who prefers more unique and obscure names, this was the perfect way to see how popular a name had been.

Besides Name Voyager, Baby Naming Wizard also has Namipedia  (name encyclopedia where users can add input to like Wikipedia), Name Mapper (tracking names by state popularity), and Name Finder (you answer questions and it helps select names; there is a more advanced pay version but the free one is good too) as well as her blog, forums, and Ask the Name Lady (on her other site NameCandy.com). Laura also wrote a book, which I own, and the best part is that after each name is a suggestion for sibling names that match the style of the name you like.  All in all BabyName Wizard is a name lover’s dream come true and Laura really is the name guru.

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BabyNames.com – This was actually the first name forum I ever found and belonged to.  I loved the idea of not only looking up names I liked on a website, but also being able to get opinions, find new names to fall in love with, and to just chat with others who loved names as much as me.  There is a small member fee to be a part of the forum at large, but the Need Name Advice forum is visible to everyone.  When I was a member I loved playing the Create a Family games because that’s what people who love names do.

Nameberry– Nameberry, in my opinion, is the more elite naming group in the naming world.  For whatever reason the members of the forum, typically called Berries, seem to really like to talk about the history and origins of how names came to be (this is my experience).  They tend to like more obscure, unique and different names and discuss them and their origins in deeper more complex levels than other sites. It’s also filled with lots of lists which is always fun to read.

Nymbler– Nymbler is another brain product of Laura Wattenberg of Baby Naming Wizard fame.  It’s a simple site based off the premise her books all included — names similar to names you already like.  In Nymbler you type in names you like or names you already named your children, and the system will pull up names they feel are similar in feel, style, etc.  You can select just girl names or just boy, as well as both, and as the names pop up you can always save or cross ones off you don’t care for.

Social Security – Every year (around April) Social Security releases the most poplar baby names of the year prior according to their birth records as new babies get their numbers. It’s always fun to try to guess what name will be on top (Baby Naming Wizard always has her predictions as this is the Kentucky Derby of the naming world), and what names rose and fell in popularity.  You can always check the Social Security site to find out what rank the name you like stands currently and in years past.

Since I was a little girl the only name that carried with me from around age 7 to now was Juliet.  I am a romantic as well as a literature aficionado, and to me Juliet encompasses my love of both things so perfectly.  While many (including Mr Chocolate) would argue that at its heart Romeo & Juliet is not really a wonderful love story, I would stand by the notion that most people hearing the name Juliet still feel like it has a strong tie to romance and love.  I knew that if I ever had a daughter this had to be her name; I had to fight Mr Chocolate tooth and nail on this. So I always had my girl name.

Because of my love of reading, I always wanted to find a way to name all my children with literary names to tie not only my love of books to them, but also as a way to tie and unite them together with their names. Literary male names are harder to come by though and Mr. Chocolate nixed my Rhett, Heath, Lance and so on (when I was pregnant with Drake we didn’t find out his sex.) So I decided to try to think outside the box a little when I discovered Drake. A drake in old English refers to a dragon and while a dragon is not a literary person, dragons have been in literature since the Middle Ages so I decided to fudge it a little once Mr. Chocolate agreed to the name.

I am always searching for new names (literary-inspired and ones I can bend to work in the literary sense like Drake). Mr. Chocolate very much likes Rex right now if we have another boy, which I think can work like Drake since Rex means king in Latin. I like Barrett (for the poet) but Mr. Chocolate is not sold. Girl names are a lot harder for me since Juliet was my pinnacle name. I have toyed with Vivienne (The lady of the lake in some Arthur stories), but am not in love with it the same way either. I also like Alice (of Wonderland) and Charlotte (Web) but both are a bit more common than I like . Mr. Chocolate and I do hope to have one more child (but not for a few more years) and I am happily scouring the web to find that last perfect name to complete our family.