BOOK REVIEW: BAD BABY NAMES
The
Book: Bad Baby Names
The Authors: Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback
Publication
Info: Published March, 2008, by Ancestry Publishing,
Provo, Utah
Author’s
Track Record: Both authors work for Ancestry Publishing, the publisher of this book. No previous book credits are indicated.
What You Get:
What's the story with "bad baby names"?
There are several websites devoted to the topic, including
one set up by the authors of this book. But why the fascination
with "bad"? It's not as if bad movies, bad books,
or bad sports teams get celebrated like bad baby names, so
what is it about "bad names" that makes it, presumably,
a sexy topic? Take a look at the forum, www.bigbadbabynames.net,
probably the biggest (or possibly baddest) of the bad baby
names sites. The forum stats reveal that the most number of
people ever online at the forum at one time was 738, on June
25, 2007. Clearly, bad baby names are a big thing.
Given the
potential market,
it's no surpise that books are appearing on the topic. 'Bad
Baby Names', by Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback, is just
one of two books published this week with the phrase 'bad baby
names' in the title! Sherrod and Rayback have both done work
in the field of genealogy, and that's where the vast majority
of the names is this book come from. They are names gathered
from Federal census documents, dating back to 1790.
The authors
have taken
a large batch of odd, unusual, and weird names, and lumped
them all under the umbrella "bad
baby names." Here are some of my favorites from their
list (note, they present the names with their surnames, because
more often than not, it is the combination of names that makes
them funny): Butcher Baker; Church Bell; Gamble Moore; Pickle
Parker; Candy Cane; Chicken Lamb; Ima Payn; Dark White; Magenta
Rose, well, you get the picture. What's most striking about
this collection of strange names is that for every name, there
was at least one, if not two, adults 'behind the name.' As
the authors ask at one point -- what were they thinking?
'Bad
Baby Names'
is a direct descendant of John Train's 1977 classic, 'Remarkable
Names of Real People', but lacking the elegance and restraint
of that earlier work.This is really a humor book -- it's puffed
up considerably with cartoon illustrations, disgruntled baby
photos, and unrelated nuggets of information, such as the fact
that in 1900, 46% of Americans owned a home, whereas in 2000,
66% did so. (Huh?). It's a book to browse through and laugh
at. Are the names really bad? I suppose. And in a strange way,
they are also quite sad.