Parenting

What's New: Naming your baby
ALT will feature a series of articles on naming your baby. Why you ask? Well names are very important when it comes to your new bundle of joy and there is an art to it. After all this is something that will affect your child his/her life time!

Each month there will be a different focus on naming your baby. Drop by soon and check out our latest article!

WHAT'S IN A NAME? More than you think
Your name is one of the first things you learned to say, and probably, the first thing you learned to write. The name you choose for your baby can mold his/her personality and opportunities forever, and make him/her either grateful or angry for your choice.

NAMES What does culture have to do with it?
All over the world, family lineage has a lot to do with the choice of a name, although at first glance that's not always obvious. In China, for example, a farmer may decide to call his child Fertile Pig or Father's Pride.

The French are not permitted to be so creative. They can only make their selctions from "official" lists of names. That's a hangover from the French Revolution when all names, even those of the days and months, were changed, and parents named their children with everyday words like "tree" or "flower".

In Africa, the Kikuyu name their first son after the father's father, the second son after the father's grandfather, and the first daugther after the father's mother, and so on.

Parents of the Ewe tribe in Ghana, on Africa's West Coast, name their babies according to which day of the week the child is born. In Burma, each day is assigned a letter of the alphabet, one only names beginning with those letters may be given to children born on that day.

TRENDS Cute today, weird tomorrow
Names in the United States go in and out of fashion, like clothing and hairstyles. The danger of giving a child a popular name is that it will "date" him/her in a particular era. The nursing homes in 60 or 70 years, for example, will be chock-full of Caitlins and Ashleys.