Coming up with a great title might be tough for other authors, but names, after all, are our business. Over two decades, through nine baby-naming guides, we've advised millions of prospective parents on how to name their offspring. So how could it be that, as we entered the third trimester of the gestation of our latest and largest work on the subject, our poor book was still nameless? How was it that we had a list of 267 potential titles and still hadn't arrived at one we loved?
Part of the challenge was that this book was different from our others, catering to mainstream baby-namers along with our usual hip audience. And the baby-naming shelves had gotten much more crowded recently, so we needed a title that shouted, "Buy me! I'm bigger, smarter and better than those other books!"
The Bigger, Smarter, Better Baby Namer? Bigger was problematic when so many name book titles feature ever-increasing numbers of names. Smarter, we feared, wouldn't sell books. Better didn't seem compelling compared to our competitors, who claim to be the Best and the Very Best.
Beyond 50,000 Baby Names was a title Pam believed had it all: an impressive number, our "Beyond" trademark and the notion that we were about more than just volume—but Linda refused to play the inflated numbers game. Okay, Pam said, what if we inflate it so far we turn the idea on its head. A Zillion Baby Names: A Guide to the Hot, the Cool, the Best, the Rest. That title would both make fun of the other books and elevate ours above the glut of number-centric titles.
Maybe, Linda countered, our title should avoid numbers and focus on names, reflecting the kinds of questions that drive prospective parents to consult a name book in the first place. How about How About Henry? she wondered. Or the trendier A My Name Is Apple, B My Name Is Blue.
Or C My Name Is Confused. Or Combative.
After a 20-year partnership during which our most serious disagreement was over the name Henrietta, we found ourselves locked in battle. Like parents-to-be who end up in screaming matches over their baby's name, we discovered that the title symbolized our defining image of the book (our baby) and ourselves—and that our images didn't inhabit the same universe, never mind the same nursery.
Wouldn't it be easier, we thought, if we didn't have to deal with each other's stupid ideas? Maybe naming a book (or child) is best accomplished alone. You don't have to contemplate naming your creation after anybody's hideous Aunt Bertha or deal with someone's loving Joshua, the name of the kid who threw up on you in second grade. Of course, sans partner, you have to do all the work by yourself. And like warring namers everywhere, we realized we had the next 900 pages to contend with and didn't want to tackle that solo. Over the years, we'd managed to agree on 49,999 names (there was Henrietta). Surely we could agree on one little title.
And we did. Except that in the case of book titles, authors aren't the only namers who get a vote. When we proudly told our agent that we'd decided to call our new book Beyond Adam and Apple, our brilliant and hard-won idea was greeted by a long silence. "Oh," he finally said. "You mean like Adam's apple?"
Forget Beyond, he said. Forget cute name pairs. What you need is a title that is bold, confident, one that says Major Book.
We totally agreed. Did he have any suggestions?
He did: The Baby Name Bible.
With several hundred choices, we'd considered that; of course we had. But we worried people would think it was a book of biblical names.
Eventually, we bowed to his judgment and called the book The Baby Name Bible. The publisher and booksellers loved it.
And us? Like so many expectant parents, the struggle over the name was forgotten in the even more enormous job of writing the book. And after delivering our bouncing 900-page manuscript, we don't care so much about its title. We just want the book to be healthy, strong and smart, with a long and successful future.
St. Martin's Griffin will publish Satran and Rosenkrantz's The Baby Name Bible in February.
