100,000 + BABY NAMES:The Most Complete Baby Name Book Paperback – Requires 386, September 1, 2015

This book is an amazing resource. I used to be a writer and now I work in video games (which still involves writing stories and developing characters) and I generally turn to this book when searching for a good name. I find that if I don't use a rich resource like this one to look through and get some new name ideas I'll likely just keep reverting back to my own personal favorites... which leaves you with a lot of similarly named characters throughout projects. I have two "go to" books that I turn to for naming - this one is for those times when I just want a sea of names to choose from and sort through, basically whenever I have no real idea or starting point for a character's name.I personally loved that the book also includes a lot of older names as well. Again, when writing you often need names that sound unique or even mythical, without actually being the names of mythological characters. Old names are great for that - they look and sound familiar enough to seem natural, but they're strange enough to sound magical.Plus you never know what kind of name someone is looking for, everyone has a different idea of what sounds pleasant to the ear, and a lot of people go for older names. Also, names tend to rotate, something that was your great grandmother's name could easily now be the cutest, trendiest name of the year.I don't really have any negative points to bring up about the book. There are times when it is a little difficult to navigate, but that's just one of the perils of having such a vast wealth of material to go through. There are also some filler entries where one name will be listed more than once with different spellings (even though there is an "alternate spellings" section under the names) but if I had to guess I would say that in those few cases it looks like it may have been done because the two spellings were equally popular. I can see where it would make it more convenient for those using the book to have the most popular spellings listed separately so as to make entries easier to find since everything is alphabetical.

After months of trying to decide a baby name, we decided to order this book for help with ideas for baby names. There are sooooo many names on this book and meanings. I saw on other reviews that people have complained that there are names that repeat, just different spellings.... well there’s only so many names that exist! Come up with your own if you don’t like one in this book! This book is more like a guideline or ideas for names, you don’t have to use one in this book. This book is just meant to help search through the thousands of names out there!The book is divided in half by girl names in one half and boy names in the other half of the book. Then it’s in alphabetical order for name ideas.It also has top names in various years, states and even countries! We did find this book helpful and even funny sometimes. We actually ended up picking our daughters name using this book!

While I am sure that most people who buy this book do it because they want a name for their baby, a fair number of people get them to use for character names in writing and gaming. I used my last edition until it literally fell apart. This is the replacement I love how it has dozens of spellings for names, some information on what it means, handy for that humanizing detail for your characters, and oh so many lists.If you are buying this book to name a baby, probably better books out there. If you are looking for a baby name book so you stop naming your sims naughty names, or you keep naming your rpg characters the same name, then you have found the book you need. Open it to a random spot and you have a ton of names to choose from. Be creative on what you call your characters so they are something other than lazypeon5

If you need 100.000 ideas to browse, this book is great. And that is the first reason I needed it, so check!If you are interested in the meaning of the names, and especially if you are considering foreign names, this book is untrustworthy. I am bilingual, so I am very familiar with one of the European name groups the author is pulling from. However, not only the spelling is incorrect in many cases, but some of those names simply do not exist in that language and culture. I lived there, so I know.My point is, as tempting as it is, you cannot rely on this as your only source of information on names. If a name's origin (and whether it truly exists) and meaning is important to you, double (or triple) check it online through reliable sources. If it completely butchered one nation's names, no guarantee that the other names are correct.So, great for browsing, horrible for gathering reliable information. Hence the 3 stars.

We chose this book after physically perusing through 12+ other name books in the bookstore. This one caught our eye since it was just recently updated in 2016 and also contained multiple lists that other books did not. In addition to separately listing names by gender in alphabetical order, Lansky included various, other lists too. Namely, lists of favorite names - from previous years, foreign countries/states, popular pop/media/historical names, atheletes, presidents, celebrity children, and many other methods. The name selection has been truly unique and different (some of them I don't even know how to pronounce) but traditional names were also included. I appreciate how the names also were defined and the origin (hebrew, english, french, etc) was also noted. It truly is a comprehensive book that has been helpful with figuring out a name for our child. We appreciate that this book is no nonsense but full of options and organized in a very easy to follow manner. Highly recommend this book over the baby wizard and other books out there.