The Only Baby Name Book You'll Ever Need

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Notwithstanding its title, this is not the only baby name book you will
ever need. It is based on the assumption that parents will want to
consider famous namesakes when selecting their baby’s name.

Accompanying the book’s 6000 names are short descriptions of the
author’s namesake selections. Some are obvious choices from popular
North American culture (the namesake for Elvis is Elvis Presley, who is
described as an “American king”), while others seem deliberately
obscure. For example, the namesake for Charles is not Charles, Prince of
Wales, but rather Charles Lynch, the American magistrate who invented
the “Lynch mob.”

In selecting names, parents often want to know derivation and meaning.
These two elements are not included in this volume, so parents will need
to consult other baby name sources as well.

Finally, the names are largely European or North American in origin.
Names originating in other cultures appear in the book if the people
bearing them have become well known in North America or Europe. Thus we
find Benazir, Yoko, and Yasmin but not Deng, Sunita, or Shidane. The
limitations of this book—and its price—make it a more likely
purchase for public libraries than for parents-in-waiting.