Baby Names Are Overwhelming . Here How To Choose : Life Kit : NPR

npr.org · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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DIANA OPONG, HOST: This is NPR's LIFE KIT.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)OPONG: What's in a name? A name is one of the first gifts a parent gives to their child. Names are important because they're one of the ways that we mark our place in the world. They're the first symbols of our identity and one of the first things we lead with when we meet someone new, like now.Hi. I'm Diana Opong. I'm a reporter and a mom to three kids. As a parent, I know that the baby naming struggle is real. I mean, the possibilities seem endless. How do you even begin to choose?MADELINE: My name is Madeline.ELOISE: My name is Eloise.CECILY: My name is Cecily.DANYA: My name is Danya.MARLAYNA: My name is Marlayna.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Good job.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)OPONG: If you've been through the baby naming process or are going through it now, I'm sure I don't have to tell you just how overwhelming it can be. Here in the U.S., parents can pretty much name their child whatever they want, which seems great until you have to pick one. I wanted to find a framework to help parents everywhere through this process. The first thing I learned is that it's supposed to be fun.LAURA WATTENBERG: So much of preparing for a baby is about anxieties. You're worried about money, about health, about safety. Names should be your chance to just sit back and dream.OPONG: That's Laura Wattenberg, baby name expert. And first, she's going to walk us through some of the social influences at work when naming babies today. Then, we'll talk to baby naming consultant Sherri Suzanne, who's seen it all.SHERRI SUZANNE: I've actually had parents reach out to me in a taxi on the way to the hospital.OPONG: She'll share some strategies she uses for finding names for her clients and help break down some assumptions on some of the best ways to start the process.SUZANNE: Names are like art and not like science.OPONG: In this episode of LIFE KIT, all things baby names.(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)OPONG: Laura Wattenberg is the author of "The Baby Name Wizard" books and creator of namerology.com. She's looked at millions of names and has studied how the names we choose reflect our culture and changing attitudes and values as a society. She says there's been a shift in the last 50 years or so.WATTENBERG: Over the past two generations, there's been a revolution in the way American parents name their children. It used to be about fitting in, so most parents would choose a name from a fairly limited set of typical baby names. That was what was realistic. That was what was expected. Today, the culture is more about standing out instead of fitting in, and the options are limitless. Everyone is pushing to be unique, to be creative. And this is creating an enormous amount of pressure and a kind of decision paralysis for today's parents.OPONG: And a lot of that paralysis comes from a familiar fear.WATTENBERG: Let's talk about popularity, because popularity is really a dominant factor in baby naming today. And it feels individual. Each of us thinks, well, I just happen to prefer uncommon names, as if that's something unique to me. But really, that's our whole generation. The most common opinion you can have is to not like things that are common. So first thing to remember is that popular just means well-liked. That's not so scary. No child's life was ruined by having a popular name.OPONG: But remember, Wattenberg says, that all popularity is not created equal.WATTENBERG: First off, the No. 1 name today is not even a fraction as popular as John and Mary used to be, or even Jennifer and David a couple of generations back. In a way, you could argue that there is no such thing as a common name today. So that can take a little bit of pressure off.OPONG: So let's start there, by removing the pressure.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)OPONG: Whether it's a popular name, a gender-neutral name or even a made-up name, in the environment we're in right now, they're all created equal. Now you just have to pick a name. But how do we move forward? Let's turn to Sherri Suzanne. Suzanne is a New York-based professional baby names consultant, who's been doing this work for over two decades. She gets to know her clients through a discovery interview where she gets a sense of their name preferences.OK. So without giving away all of your secrets, what is the first step when a parent reaches out to you, regardless of what stage they're at in their pregnancy?SUZANNE: Well, for parents at home, let me say one thing. You're not going to make a mistake when you care this much, for starters. Start paying attention in stores. Start paying attention on television. Listen to perhaps colleagues talk about their children and pay attention to the type of name style that seems pleasing. For example, you hear a parent in a store call out a very unusual name, you think to yourself, oh, I find that intriguing. I might like an unusual name too - whereas you're watching a television show, and a child might have a very classic name, Elizabeth, and say, I'm more comfortable with that. I like the sound of that. So I ask parents to start paying attention to that.As for my questionnaire, I will ask how they feel about their own name. What is their experience with their own name? When they were called on as a child, how did they feel about responding to the name? And those experiences with their own name are always very telling about the type of name or the type of experience they hope their own child has with their name.OPONG: That's really cool. One thing that I thought about when, again, thinking about my experience picking a name and other friends is sort of, like, determining what you want your circle of influence to be - like, your personal preferences, the preferences of your partner, family historical traditions and societal and cultural influences, movies or whatever and trusted friends. When you're doing this process, is it really sort of just you and the couple? Or do they sometimes give you feedback from their family members as well?SUZANNE: Well, let's say step two for parents at home is to consider, what are the limitations?OPONG: What does that mean?SUZANNE: Well, these are the parameters that you bring to the baby naming decision. And yes, sometimes they come from, as you put it, the sphere of influence. They come from family members. So what might these limitations be? They might be religious. Perhaps all the children in the family have Catholic saints for names. Let's say the parent has a speech impediment - I've worked with a few couples. So what attractive names might avoid, let's say, if the letter S or the letter X might be a weakness. After trying to decide what kind of style, think about what these parameters are.OPONG: I love that.SUZANNE: And in a lot of cases, it has to do with trying to figure out where the parents meet on taste and if there are cultural issues the family, on a broader level, might need to address. So don't think of them as limiting. They're guides. They're guides to help you achieve something. And they're - it usually makes things a lot of fun.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)OPONG: Yeah. So when you got your short list of names, what do you recommend parents do to try to whittle that down?SUZANNE: Explore. And once you come up with your list of candidates, yes, see how they work in the real world. Lift them off the paper. You want your child to be able to introduce him or herself with confidence.OPONG: Totally, yeah. So one of the things I wanted to ask you, Sherri, is about having a list of guidelines that you factor into your name choice. So for example, I know a mom, who - her husband's side of the family, the name Dan was used a lot for a significant amount of family members for her taste. And because there were so many people named Dan on that side of the family, she was like, no, there's no way I'm naming my son Dan. And so they had a no-Dan list. And I think it was so funny because I think everybody has that. Everyone has a name that, like, reminds them of someone they don't want to remember or a person from school that they don't want to ever have to think about again. And I was just wondering if you have couples that come to you that have a similar, like, no way list.SUZANNE: Oh, yes, all of them.(LAUGHTER)SUZANNE: Yes, they do. And - now, usually what they're doing is they're saying, this are the names of my best friend's children, these are the names of my nieces and nephews. But a lot of times, they're saying, this is his ex-girlfriend.OPONG: Yup.SUZANNE: This is my ex-boyfriend. It's part of the experience. Sometimes it's even a bit more serious. They may have names that really do have - are problematic for them. They may belong to a family member who's persona non grata. Or sometimes, one of the things I specialize in is working with families who have blended cultures and or are recent immigrants, the feeling of how much they want the name to label them.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)OPONG: Yeah, you just hit on something, Sherri, that I think is really important. The idea of a child being labeled because of their name is something that I personally thought a lot about when we were naming our kids. Every family is different, but I have a family with blended cultures. And so what you just mentioned really resonates with me. My husband is a white American, and when we were picking names for our kids, there were some names that we both really liked, but unfortunately, we shied away from them. This is due to research that we had seen in previous years about how a name could impact a person's ability to get a job regardless of their qualifications. And as a person of color, that scared me. So it was important for me to have us pick a name that felt like our child could be from, like, anywhere. This is something I personally thought about as an immigrant, but I have many family and friends who have made completely different choices and done the complete opposite from me, and they've honored a variety of cultures with pride an