

The Boston Globe


First Person/Laura Wattenberg

What’s in a baby name?

Baby Name Wizard’s Laura Wattenberg’s 2011 pick

> How did you become a baby name authority? I was [at a park]; my 1-year-old was in the sandbox. Someone called out “Sophia,” and three girls stood up. I wanted to know how it happened, how everyone had chosen the same name.

> How had it? Names are a fossil record of parents’ hopes, dreams, and obsessions . . . from generation to generation. You see a lot of the American psyche in the names we choose.

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