You may have a favourite name in mind during or even before the pregnancy, or you may prefer to wait until after the birth to see what will suit your baby. Zowie Bowie lost no time in changing his name to Joe as a teenager. A long surname, for instance, can happily take a monosyllabic forename, and vice versa. More importantly, say it out loud. Mr and Mrs Thyme would be ill-advised to call their child Justin, for example.
Some names have interesting or particularly appropriate meanings.
Natalie, for example, means 'born at Christmas', and Russell means 'little red-haired man'. Browse through the baby namer for thousands more names and their meanings. All rights reserved.