Guest Post: The Baby Name Rules

I'm fascinated with baby names -- not just what people name their children, but where those names come from, how naming patterns move through communities, how cultures create rules and rituals for naming. I always read the baby announcements in the paper, eagerly await the yearly Social Security names index, and have read books on baby names just for kicks.

Henry David - too cool for rules from Day 1

That's why I'm delighted to share with you this guest post, from my friend Savannah at Preconceived Notions. I've mentioned her and her fabulous food blog, Appetite, before, and I'm excited to bring some attention to her newest project of blogging with wit and snark through "life, marriage, pregnancy, and motherhood" as well -- because those are all things I'm kind of involved in (or in the case of pregnancy, have been involved in) too, you know.

I loved the post you're about to read, and I hope you do too. I also hope you enjoy arguing with it! Because while I wholly support the rules that would discourage the names Promise, Field, and Tree (yes, I have known people by all those names!), I have broken the Obvious Clause of the Literature/Pop Culture section myself. (Complex, these rules ...)

So read on and share your thoughts on The Baby Name Rules!

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The Baby Name Rules

I'm already being asked by people if we're thinking about baby names. I find that pretty funny, seeing as how I'm not pregnant, people expect me to already have named my not-yet-conceived spawn. And yes, actually, we have. At least, if we have a boy first. If we have a girl, we're fairly clueless. This is all assuming I manage to get pregnant and then give birth to a child that looks like the name we picked out.

I've had many friends give birth in recent years, and baby name selection has ranged in difficulty — from friends who knew what their kid was named from the minute sperm met egg to those who didn't name their child for several days after birth, and even a friend who is still luke-warm about her child's moniker.

Now, as a copy editor, I see baby names all the time — especially in the weekly "birth" announcements. I think this makes me qualified to pass on some advice to all parents out there who are considering naming a child.

Guest Post: That Post On The Healthcare System

Hello, loyal Tarababble readers! The following is a guest post by my friend Melanie (of Musings of a Renaissance Girl) -- I've been pestering her about it for a while, and I'm excited to be sharing it with you.

When she was 16, Melanie was diagnosed with cancer. Her family had to face the terrifying threat of losing her -- and of losing everything they had to pay for the treatments that eventually saved her life. Here's her story.

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I realized something today.  I realized that I've been putting off blogging, primarily because I had promised a post on the healthcare system, which I felt unequal to for a number of reasons.  One is a lack of organization, one a distaste for controversy, but primarily I've been avoiding the subject here because it involves going back there, and there is a place I've successfully managed to steer clear of for several years now.


However, I do think what I have to say needs to be said, and luckily it is not up to me to offer the perfect solution to solve all our problems and create a disease and debt-free paradise.  I can only point out the problems as I see them.  Sit back and relax.  This promises to be a longish post.


I was sixteen years old when I was diagnosed with stage three (stage four being worst-case, stage one best) Hodgkins Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system.  It came out of nowhere for our family.  Someone later made a remark to my mother, as if it was something she should have done, about how they were "concentrating on prevention" themselves.  Now, my sister and I lived about the healthiest lives possible.  We lived on the side of a mountain, breathed clean air, climbed trees, ran around in fields, not to mention having ballet classes every week.  My mother cooked everything we ate from scratch, we drank soda perhaps once a year.  We were always healthy, and because we were always healthy, when our family couldn't afford health insurance, just about the time I turned sixteen, it didn't seem like a big loss.  I couldn't remember the last time I'd been to the doctor.