Baby Names Books

[RainDancer]

Any recommendations for a really good baby names book? Amazon seems to have loads and I have no idea which would be the best to go for.

I've always been really interested in names. Years ago I got these two books from a charity shop:

The Pan Book of Boys' Names - www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pan-book-Boys%2527-Names/dp/B001RXOI8E/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1339347654&sr=8-9

The Pan Book of Girls' Names - www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pan-Book-girls-Names/dp/B001R1GJWO/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1339347654&sr=8-8

They're pretty old-fashioned but extremely interesting. For the more common names there's a multi-paragraph description giving meanings (or listing speculations when the meaning isn't agreed) and also naming famous people with that name (although I guess that would be out of date by now). But my favourite part was the appendix - each book ends with a list of more unusual (to my mind, more exciting!) names with a very short summary of meaning and origin (a few words). In a way the fact that they're so old makes them more interesting because some of the names they have in are different from what's popular now.

Brilliant, thanks.

Hi. I got one from amazon called Bring back Beatrice. Found it concentrated on the names that you were most likely to consider rather than 10,000 that just confuse you. Good descriptions on meanings etc too ...