After working hard to build her career as a lawyer, Joanne is about to have her first baby at age Thirty-five. Not content with just one book, she’s brought home armloads of books from library and has even dug out half a dozen magazine articles on how to choose the best name for her baby.

Unfortunately, the more Joanne reds, the more uncertain she feels. “Several articles say the name I choose can affect the grade my child will get in school,” Joanne says. “I don’t honestly see how a child’s name alone could affect how her teachers treat her…but, still, I do worry. Also, if my baby’s a girl, I was thinking of calling her Kayla or Shanna, but then I saw a psychologist quoted who insists unusually named kids are unpopular and have emotional problems. I don’t know. Maybe I should just listen to my mother. She wants me to call the baby Kathy or Michael.”

Joanne is hardly alone. Many thoughtful, loving parents are concerned about the psychological impact a particular name may have on their baby’s future. Clearly, our names are important to us. Scientists have observed that when you hear your own name spoken -even when you’re asleep- your brain waves become twice as active as when you hear someone else’s name. The psychologist Gordon Allport contended that a child’s name is the focal point around which he organizes his self - identity throughout life. But what does modern psychological research tell us about choosing the very best name for a baby? What are the pros and cons, for example, of giving your baby an unusual name like Shanna rather than a common one like Kathy? Can the same name you choose affect your baby’s future school grades or emotional development (as some so- called experts ominously warn)? Should you play it safe and opt for an ordinary name like Dick or Jane?

When trying to answer such complex questions, it’s not nearly enough to simply glance at findings from one or two poorly designed name studies done twenty or thirty years ago and then try to draw up guidelines for naming your baby (which is what far too many “experts” intent on drawing up hard- and - fast naming rules have done). Findings from a scientific study done in lab, while frequently interesting, don’t always translate directly and easily to hard- and - fast naming “how-to’s” in the real world. So let’s analyze the latest scientific findings about the psychology of names to see what this research tells you (if anything) about how to choose the very best name for your special baby.