Perhaps, you have asked yourself what is in a name as you browse a book of naming options. At the very least, a name differentiates one person from another, but it is much more than that. Your baby’s name becomes his or her identity for life, and as names wax or wane in popularity, they can pigeonhole the baby into a category — one in which he/she may either want or not want to be in later adult life.

The quest to find an appropriate name for your baby is fun. But you have to be prepared to negotiate because your partner may have different preferences. Remember that the name that you will christen to your baby reflects the age in which he or she lives; this is especially true in girls name baby.

Girls name baby did not use to be a cause for pause until the eighteenth century. Girls, like boys, were named after a close relative. There was a system to it. The firstborn girl was given the name of her father’s mother; the second-born after her mother’s mother; the third born took the name of the mother herself. The later daughters received the names of their parents’ sisters.

In fact, if you choose to have girls name baby after your name, adding "Junior" to her name, you’ll be following an archaic tradition. In the 1700s in New England, it was not uncommon to read the names "Elizabeth Smith, Jr." on legal documents and wills. This quaint cultural tradition disappeared in the 1800s, when families began giving names outside the family tree to their female offspring.

Since then, girls name baby have become more diverse and imaginative than those of the boys. Like fashion accessories, female names now serve as adornment to make the bearer distinct from other females. And the trends in girls name baby seem to change in popularity pretty quickly.

Girls name baby are more likely to follow the latest trend than appellations for boys. It is still perfectly acceptable to have little boys use the same names as men over age forty (such as Bob, Mike, or Joe), but you’ll never find this done for girls name baby. Names common among women over forty such as Linda, Nancy, Mary, Barbara, and Kathy are today rarely given to little girls; they are considered too "old."

To help you find girls name baby that your daughter can be comfortable with for many years to come, say out loud each of your selected names together with your last name. Make sure that they sound nice and blend well together. If the girls name baby is likely to get a nickname which you do not like, find another one. You may also want to consider gender identification, that is, it must be easy to identify whether your child is a girl or a boy unfortunate enough to have a girls name baby.