BabyNameGuide.com - Baby Names

Thanksgiving, A Time for Family.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:33:55 -0600

The days of eating dinner around the dining room table are long gone. I remember eating each meal at home with the whole family -- breakfast, lunch and dinner. We've now replaced home cooked meals with fast-food and car seats. Prepared foods are also very popular. Just visit your local supermarket, and it will look more like a smorgasbord than a grocery store. Then the forth Thursday of November comes along and everything changes. Families start to gather in what becomes the biggest home cooked meal of the year. But why? Let's first take a look at the history behind thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, presently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. It did not become a federal holiday until 1941. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God, and is still celebrated as such by many families, but it is now also considered a secular holiday as well.

Source: Wikipedia. License Terms

A Craving For Chocolate Cake

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:34:49 -0600

I've been making my homemade chocolate cake for about two years now. I have perfected the recipe and you will think it's the best chocolate cake ever. So if you're craving chocolate cake during your pregnancy, this is the recipe for you.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 cup apple sauce
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup 2% milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift dry ingredients in large bowl. Add apple sause, coffee and milk. Mix at medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, beat 2 more minutes. (Batter will be a little thin.) Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan and bake at 325 for 45 to 60 minutes. Test with toothpick until it comes out of center of cake clean.

For a great icing combine 1 cup of crisco and 1 cup sugar and mix until fluffy (About 15 minutes). Set aside. Over medium heat, combine 1/2 cup milk and 2 TBsp. of flour. (Hint, mix the 2 TBsp. of flour with a little milk, mix and add to remaining milk). Cook milk mixture until thickened (stirring constantly). Let Cool. Add milk mixture and 1 tsp. of vanilla extract to sugar mixture and blend for another 15 minutes. We call it Twinkle Icing.

25 Days of Christmas

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:54:11 -0600

My wife and I came up with a great idea for the evenings leading up to Christmas. Our idea was to do something special (movies, popcorn and more) with the kids every night starting on December 1st and ending on Christmas Night. Our kids love movies and every Friday we have movie night in our house. We thought since the kids look forward to movie night every Friday, they may love this idea. And they did! The idea got a thumbs-up from our three kids. We chose 22 movies from 1935 to 2007. That leaves three more evenings. We plan on going to see a musical/play, we're thinking "A Musical Christmas Carol". We also will be reading the book, "Twas the night before Christmas". And on Christmas Night we will be watching our video from Christmas morning. This has been our tradition for years. Select "Read More" to see our list.

Will your baby have red hair?

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:44:34 -0500

Before I hand things over to the Expert, I have a some personal experience with this topic. My wife has red hair, and I have brown hair with some facial red hair, so what are the chances that are kids would have red hair. Would the chances be 30% or 50%, what if I told you 100%. All three of my children have red hair. Our oldest, our daughter has Auburn hair, our oldest son has dark red hair and our youngest son has strawberry-blonde hair. Even though there are statistics that you can go by, I'm convinced that you can never count on it being a perfect system.

As far as eye color, the two older kids ended up with hazel eyes and the youngest has green-hazel eyes. My wife has green eyes and I have hazel eyes. Now for the Expert...

Baby Naming Books

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:30:40 -0500

We put together some of the most popular baby naming books available for your convenience. This way you don't have to search yourself and spend valuable time trying to decide which books are the best. This is also a great way to search for baby names when a computer is not accessible.

We put together a list of 20 diverse baby naming books from Amazon. These books range from large lists to narrow lists, Irish to African American. Almost all these books are well priced. Please Enjoy! CLICK HERE

God's Beauty in Fall (Free High Res Photos)

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:03:44 -0500

We decided to upload some photos from the beautiful state of Pennsylvania. If you've never been to the state of Pennsylvania, you don't know what you are missing. The following photos are for your personal use only. Please feel free to use them for birth announcements, invitations, desktop wallpaper or birthday cards. Note: Not for commercial use.

Columbus Day Sail on Baby Names!

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:50:10 -0500

If you love trivia like I do, then here's a few name ideas for babies born around Columbus Day. Did you know that Christopher Columbus was from Genoa, Italy, but sailed for Spain? His voyages were funded by “Isabella I” of Castile and “Ferdinand II” of Aragon.

The three ships that Columbus picked were the Santa Maria, the Santa Clara and the Pinta. The first, which Columbus sailed himself was called Santa Maria (or Saint Maria). The Santa Maria was named by Columbus for its fitting out location, El Puerto de Santa Maria. It was previously named La Gallega by it owner, Juan de la Cosa. The second ship, Santa Clara, was more commonly known by its nickname “Nina” meaning girl. The Nina was captained by Vincente Anes Pinzon. Finally, the Pinta meaning painted one was captained by Vincente's brother, Martin Alonso Pinzon.

Columbus made four voyages all together. The first one landing him and his crew on Hispaniola, the island of Haiti and Dominican Republic. Columbus died at the age of 55 of reactive Arthritis, believing that he reached the east coast of Asia, never realizing that he had discovered a new land.

Names associated with Columbus Day are...

Oktoberfest or Babyfest?

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:51:36 -0500

October is a time for fun, beer and babies. Hopefully not in that order. This brings me to Oktoberfest, thrown by the people in Munich, Germany. What a party this event must be. I understand that Oktoberfest is huge. How huge? It's considered the biggest fair in the world -- drawing over 6 million people during the two week event. Get this, almost 10 million liters of beer is consumed during Oktoberfest. Wow! We have nothing even close to that size in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But there are some very nice and memorable events during the month of October. There is an Apple Fest in Franklin, PA where apples are abundant and the food takes center stage. I took the family there this year. And we had a blast! By the way, my youngest (who is three) loves apples. Just tonight, I made a chocolate souffle, but Daniel didn't eat any, instead he grabbed an apple. I actually have a child that says no to chocolate.

What else is October known for? Does baby births come to mind? Well, they should. According to Answers.com, October is the second largest month for baby births. I'm not sure why, but my guess is that it has something to do with the new year. Personally, none of my children were born in the month of October, or any of the Fall months. Maybe it's because my wife didn't want to be in her third trimester during the Fall. All this talk about October has made me thirsty, not for beer, but for hot apple cider. Yum. Yum.

Monsters vs. Aliens... Baby Names that are Scary

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:45:31 -0500

Halloween is almost upon us, so what's better than spooky baby names. OK, it's just for fun. I have to say, there are certain names that send chills through my bones. Many times these names are common, but when you say the names around Halloween, they take on a whole new meaning. An example would be "Jason". This name used any other time of the year would be very normal, not much thought would come to your mind. But during the last couple weeks of October, "Jason" has a different kind of impact. Who doesn't remember the movies, Friday the 13th based on the fictional character "Jason Voorhees". A few other names include Freddy, Chucky and Norman. Again, I don't think I have to tell you who comes to mind.

What monster names can you think of? The one that comes to my mind is "Medusa". This name can be found under our Mythology Category. This name means THREE. Medusa was a monster that had snakes for hair, and if you looked into her eyes you would turn to stone. Another name for me is Sulley. For some reason I can't seem to get past kids animated movies. Sulley was a monster from the movie, Monsters Inc.

Alien names are more difficult for me. I could say "Jar Jar Binks", but this character ruined Star Wars for me. What a dumb character. The only name that really sticks out to me is Clark Kent or Superman. Technically he's an alien. Clark means Clergyman and if you think about it, that's really close to Clark's personality (Not Superman's).

What do you consider scarier, Monsters or Aliens? If you can think of another Monster or Alien name that's better than mine, I would like to know.

Rock and Roll Hall of Names

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:22:22 -0500

I was sitting around thinking of a category for baby names and listening to the rock group Foreigner. Then a light bulb went off, "what about Rock and Roll names." So, I put together a quick list of Rock and Roll names from A to Z. Here's what I came up with...

Alice Cooper
Buddy Holly
Chuck Berry
David Bowie
Elvis Presley
Freddie Mercury

Click READ MORE for more names.