The Penguin Classic Baby Name Book: 2,000 Names from the World's Great Literature

If you are like most expectant parents you are looking for that special name with special meaning. A name with a legacy, a name for the ages. What better place to look for a name for your child than in literature? "The Penguin Classic Baby Name Book" is divided into sections of boy names and girls names; entries list names alphabetically and include information on origin and meaning, as well as variations and, most important, literary namesakes. In the entry for Julia (Latin, "youthful"), for example, we meet Jane Austen's Julia Bertram of "Mansfield Park", two Trollope Julias of a "certain age", Wilkie Collins's strong-minded Lady Julia Verinder of "The Moonstone", as well as Juliana, a Yulia, a Julie -Strindberg's "Miss" - and Shakespeare's Juliet (who, of course, famously pondered, "What's in a name?"). Throughout the book are sidebars with mini essays about literary characters and naming trends, as well as pointed quotations from the books themselves. And there is an index of authors, if you want to name your son after Juliet's hotheaded cousin in "Romeo and Juliet" but can't remember his name.