‘The Baby Name Wizard’ Is A Time-Sucker. You’ve Been Warned

shutterstock_126390038It’s Sunday – I’m sure you all need a way to waste some time on the Internet. Well, I’ve found it. The Baby Name Wizard. You don’t need to be an expectant parent to be entertained by this thing, either.

All of those lists of popular baby names always elude me. I don’t want my child to have the same name as half of his or her class. Not that it really matters, but I want to choose something a little unique. The only reason I’ve scanned those lists of popular baby names recently is to be sure that I’m not giving my child-to-be the new most popular name around. It’s a little hard, because I actually really love all of those names. Sophia, Emma, Olivia, Isabella, Ava… they are all beautiful. And whose to say I won’t end up choosing a name that becomes the most popular one in 2013 anyway?

The reason I love the Baby Name Wizard so much is for a tool it offers called “The Name Voyager.” It lets you track the popularity of a name throughout the last century. It’s pretty cool. For example, I can enter my son’s name in the box provided and see that his name peaked in popularity in 1910. Okay, so I’m a dork.

There are other interesting connections to be examined on the site. The tracking of the popularity of names like “Brady” and “Jordan” shows that sports fans are responsible for some serious trends in naming children. It’s fun to plug in any names you are tossing around to see where the trends in popularity lie. It’s also fun to plug in names of existing children and yourself to see where how you all fare. My name is Maria, so it will seriously never go out of style. The Virgin Mary, my namesake, pretty much guarantees it.

If you’re expecting – and even if you’re not – go to the site and have some fun. Don’t blame me if you waste your afternoon, though.

(photo: Amir Ridhwan/ Shutterstock.com)

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