100 Books I Keep Keeping... 14 Favourite Names for Boys and Girls
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Favourite Names for Boys and Girls by Patrick Cook (1983)
Okay, some baby name books take themselves and their advice Very Seriously.
This is not one of them. It's mercilessly Australian humour sending up all of them, but Cook (a popular humorist and cartoonist, who in another book created my second-favourite cartoon of all time) has a stiletto-sharp way with a turn of phrase, and I just can't help laughing... especially as the first one I recall reading (which, I might add, is the first one below) sort of... does describe all too many of the Deborahs I have met in my life...
He published a second volume, imaginatively called More Favourite Names for Boys and Girls, pink covered and just as umm... unfluffy :) Sally isn't in either, for which I am rather grateful...
Oh yes, some baby name books are designed to be invaluable for parents, maybe authors, and anyone else seeking help in the all important task of naming, and are meant to be taken seriously by their readers.
This is definitely not one of them.