The Story Behind Nameberry

How Linda Rosenkrantz and I Reinvented Baby Names

Back in the Dark Ages, before the goddesses (that's us) created the Nameberry Forums, there was no way for name lovers to find each other -- or even to know that there was anyone else in the world who shared your passion.

My family didn't. My friends didn't. No one in books or on TV did. And that was the outer boundary of my world. .

Linda was the first person I ever met who had the same kind of passion for names as I did. Already friends and both writers, we talked endlessly about names when I was pregnant with my first child. But we didn't really need an excuse.

All that talk became the basis for our first book. Instead of a conventional A to Z dictionary, we wanted to organize names into lists of popular names and vintage names, celebrity baby names and movie character names, lists of Irish names and gender-neutral names and names that mean love.

We wanted to make other parents see names the way we did, as diverse and fascinating and important.

“We're telling people to look beyond Jennifer,” I said (or maybe Linda said).

“…and Jason,” Linda said (or maybe I said).

Our eyes met and we both knew, the way parents do: We'd found The Name.

Beyond Jennifer & Jason changed how and what people named their babies. In 1988, the year it was published, there were about 22,000 names in use for babies in the US. Last year, there were 33,000 -- that's 50 percent more. Maybe we can't take credit for that whole 50% increase, but we can probably claim half.

Beyond Jennifer & Jason was followed by ten more bestselling books about names, including Cool Names and The Baby Name Bible, many of them written before the internet. We’d mail drafts back and forth, revising (and retyping) each other. Faxes made the process quicker if not easier.

Then the internet changed the world of baby names yet again, and with the help of engineer Hugh Hunter, we created Nameberry. Finding the right name for our new website was fun, but proved a lot more difficult than coming up with Beyond Jennifer & Jason.

I have a list of dozens of possible names we considered before we settled on Nameberry. Some of them I still like:

Nameroni

Namefeather

Nomdebaby

Namekisses

Namewitches

Actually, not sure about that last one. It might belong on the list of website names that now seem, uh, less good, like Namecheater, Denamer, and Knamer.

Through the 35 years we worked together, Linda and I collaborated on thousands of articles, lists, and ideas about names. For a little name nerd full of shame about my strange passion, finding a kindred soul in Linda and building a career based on names was a dream too big to imagine.

Besides the work we did together around names, Linda and I both had independent writing careers. Linda’s groundbreaking novel Talk was reissued to great acclaim by the New York Review of Books. My novel Younger was made into a seven-season TV show by Darren Star.

Linda's latest book is Peter Hujar's Day, about the famous photographer who was one of her closest friends. Mine is the novel The Matriarch, due out from Zibby Books next Mother's Day.

No matter what else we had going on, we never got tired of talking about names. And we almost never disagreed. Except about the name Henrietta. I’ve always loved it, Linda did not, but otherwise, I always thought her taste was perfect.

When my own daughter was expecting, she wouldn’t talk to me about baby names. I couldn't complain given that Nameberry advises expectant parents not to talk to their families about names, a sound rule. The person she turned to instead? Linda, of course, who visited her in the hospital when she was born, bearing a hand-knit sweater.

Linda and I are so proud and delighted that so many parents heard our call to move beyond Jennifer and Jason. Though sometimes we wonder if they've moved too far. Maybe our next book should be called Beyond Chaos & ..... What do you think, Linda?

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Name Pieces by Linda Rosenkrantz

You’ve probably seen Linda’s byline on lots of features around the site. Here are three of my favorite pieces by Linda:

Testing the Hundred-Year Rule – Linda came up with the Hundred-Year Rule, which holds that baby names that fall out of style take a hundred years to come back. Her rule has now entered the baby name vernacular.

Underrated Baby Names, Part Deux – Of course I know Linda’s favorite names, many of which are on this list. They’re all great choices, and 15 years later, still underrated.

Call Me Laila…No, Ruth….No, Linda – The Story of How I Got Hooked on Names – Most namiacs (I just made that up) are made, not born. Here’s the backstory of Linda’s passion for names and search for identity.