One thing that keeps most people awake at night, once they have decided to have a baby, is deciding on a name for their baby. These days, you can find out whether you are having a boy or a girl well before your baby is born, so you have plenty of time to come up with a name. What will you call your baby?

If you are going to name your child after a relative, then that's sorted out and you need not read any further. But if you have not chosen to keep a family name line going, you may want to name your child something traditional and well known. The downside of that is your child may have the same or similar name as everyone else in his or her age group; for example, the teacher calls on “Steve,” and eight boys, including yours, answer. On the other hand, a traditional, “normal” name has the advantage of not getting your child picked on. If you get creative, and give your baby an unusual name, be sure you think it through, or the consequences may be unfortunate for your child. So, if you name your boy Maynard, for example, he will either become thick-skinned and a fighter, or he may learn to cower and put up with an endless flow of lame “nerd” jokes. And everyone's heard the Johnny Cash song about a boy named Sue.

Nonetheless, if you can't think of any ancestor who you'd want to name your baby after, and are bored by names like “Michael” and “Ashley,” you may want come up with something more unique. The first thing you need to do is imagine every possible insult that can be derived from, or rhymed with, your child's name (see Maynard above). Aside from the obvious danger of coming up with a name that will get your kid picked on in school, there are other pitfalls.

Remember your child will have initials, and if those initials spell anything off-color, peculiar or even comical, he or she can be in for a bumpy ride during the school aged years. Try to be aware of that pratfall if at all possible.

One possible pitfall is that the unique name you come up with may not actually be all that unique. Tastes within a culture, no matter how individual they feel, are cultural creations, not individual creations. Thus many people may simultaneously come up with the same ‘invented' name, without anyone having stolen it from anyone else.

We live in a shared culture with common experiences and frames of reference that shape our likes and dislikes. For example, if you are a hipster type and name your child after a rather unglamorous ‘flyover' state, you might find that your kid is not the only ‘Iowa' in her Montessori school. Likewise, if you are a conservative and name your kid Reagan, you probably aren't the first to do this either. Creativity is like that; you have to have a familiar frame of reference.

Communal taste, on the other hand, goes a long way toward making the name you create acceptable. It is what makes it so that people understand your unique name, and can appreciate it. Oh, and one more thing about clever names: as much as parents are concerned with coming up with a name that stands out, your kid will be concerned with fitting in.

No matter what your choice, your child will want to fit in with his or her peers. Try to remember how you feel about your parent's choice for your name when considering names for your baby. This will ultimately help you with your task and assist you in making a choice that is right for you, your family and your baby.