We all love visiting Sarah’s blog, For Real Baby Names. In fact, I’ve even admitted being a little envious of her site, which is filled with the juiciest bits from birth announcements around the globe. (Mind you, now I collect my own BAs, on a much more modest scale, my envy has worn off quite a bit as I’ve realised the enormous amount of work involved).

Now Sarah has brought out her own e-book: Bold Baby Names: A Collection of Unusual Names. These are all baby names which don’t make the US Top 1000, and which have been found in recent birth notices.

So often you see names recommended on baby name sites, and you begin to doubt whether anyone even uses them. Would anyone really call their baby Aladdin or Frodo? Or Omega or Vixen? Well now you know that someone definitely did. On the other hand, there are plenty of “normal” names as well, like Cecil and Myrtle, but they’re so unusual today as to seem quite bold too.

Bold Baby Names is arranged alphabetically, and sorted into whether the name was given to a boy or a girl (although many of these names seem suitable for either gender). There are bold middle names to consider, intriguing celebrity baby names, and lists from different countries around the world.

Australia gets its own section, and I think Australian readers will find that a few of the names in this part will seem quite familiar. You may well find yourself saying, “But Lachie‘s my nephew’s name!”, or “I went to school with a girl called Jacinta!”. It just goes to show that we must all share our names with each other, because a fairly standard old name in one country may seem shockingly exotic in another.

For that matter, Sarah also includes the US Top 1000, and there’s some pretty unusual names even on this list. Precious, Clarence, Kimber, Cortez, Meadow and Legend seem reasonably far-out to me, yet there’s enough of them in the United States to make the country’s top name list.

If you are a big fan of For Real Baby Names, you will find yourself entranced by Bold Baby Names. It couldn’t be easier to get your hands on a copy – if you have PayPal, just click the BUY NOW button on Sarah’s site, and you will be able to instantly download it in handy PDF format.

It’s currently on special for US$2.99, so for the price of some small change, you can find out how to be a bold baby namer!