9 Rules for Naming Your Baby

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The most unusual baby name that I proposed was Svetlana. My wife vetoed it. I don't blame her and probably wouldn't have gone through with it anyway. A child should have perhaps an interesting baby name, but not a weird one. We live in an age in which Cheese is an actual baby name and some parents are selecting names from the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, so it's necessary to tell this to people.

Drew Magary of GQ has 9 helpful tips that future parents may want to keep in mind when thinking about naming their children. Here's a selection:

1. Do not invent a name. Most inventions fail. Many don't even make it past the patent stage. What makes you think a name you created out of thin air is gonna stand the test of time? There's a reason why "Jane" and "David" have hung around for so long. They're proven. They've been workshopped out in the field. That's not true of Kaydiss. You didn't even run it past a focus group. You're putting the responsibility for an entire new product launch on that poor baby's shoulders. That's a dick move. This also goes for any classic name that you deliberately mutilated. No one's gonna be dazzled that you took Christopher and turned it into Krystougher. [...]
6. Do not use double letters if you don't have to. Branlee. That's a real name. People have used it, just as they've used Kylee, Sandee, and thousands of other homemade names that deploy double e's and double n's wherever possible because…well, beecausee! It just looks betterr, doesn't it?! We're on the verge of triple letters. In two years, a Trissstyn will show up at your country day school and everyone's head will explode. [...]
7. Do not name your child after the following things:

A television network

An item in the Pottery Barn catalog

Some goddamn character in Twilight

A car

A type of New Age exercise method

Yourself

Food

Any celebrity baby. We already have one Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette. We don't need a second one.

What would you add to the list?

-via David Thompson

When choosing names for my daughters, my mother told me to make sure the name would sound okay right after "Senator" or "Chief Justice." So they have old fashioned but not obsolete names. I was afraid there would be many girls with the same names in their classes, but no. The other girls all have trendy names I can't spell.