I know, I should be writing. Don’t worry, I have been. I’m home for the day for an appointment, and have spent a good hour on the story. About to wrap up the end of the first scene in chapter 1…and I realized I don’t have a solid character name for my hero. I do have a “working” name that came out during on of the heroine’s dialogues with a secondary character, but I’m one of those who absolutely must know the character’s name before I can write it.
Mind you, I won’t get started with the hero until the last line of chapter one, when the heroine time-travels back to his bed (oooooh…spoiler alert 
) but I need to know it because she’s going to be thinking of him in the next two scenes.
So how fun is it when I checked out some babyname places online and found this one? It’s from the Social Security Administration (maybe this is where my money is going…LOL) where you can plug in any year after 1879 and get a listing of the 50, 100, or even 500 most popular names that year? Extremely cool, especially if you write historicals. My story is set around the 1860s so it won’t be spot-on but a good resource nonetheless. You can get both male and female names.
Go on, check it out. Every writer deserves a little play time You can choose by year, by decade, by state and you can search individual names to see how popular they were as well. Oh, yeah…don’t forget to get back to the writing!
Popular Baby Names by Birth Year at the Social Security Administration website
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Today I was writing out my Christmas cards when I came to your name and I wondered, “What ever happened to my old penpal Beth?”. So I googled you and here you are! I am so impressed! Congratulations on such great success! Keep in touch. Kris in Massachusetts
Oh my gosh! I was just thinking of you, too, and those wonderful photos of the boys you send each year! We’ve talked about taking another trip up to Boston in the summer…had so much fun the last time!
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