Oh, yeah, Baby Names Bible? Well...same to you!

As Mrs. Shark and I prepare for our second "blessed event," we are considering various baby names, and since nothing mutually agreeable jumped out at us right away (Yes, we ruled out "Jaws," "Great White," and "Bruce"), we picked up "The Baby Names Bible" by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz.

I'm flipping through the boys' names when I get the bright idea to look up my own handle. That's when I got a brutal reminder of how snide these authors can be. These ladies have the nerve to call Richard a "far from stylish old Norman name, with a rich royal history, still clinging to the Top 100."

Far from stylish? Well, at least they got the "rich royal history" in there. I prefer to think of it as a solid presence in any Top 100. But they continue: "All the possible nicknames--Richie, Ricky, and especially Dick--are so over."

I beg your pardon? I'm not going to defend the use of the nickname "Dick" in modern society, but I happen to find "Rick" a particuarly appealing name, thank you very much. Not so the authors, who claim it was "last cool when Bogie roamed Casablanca."

Even Ricky, they assert, is "gone with Richard and Rick."

I appreciate the no-holds-barred approach this book takes in warning parents away from names they feel are passe or too far out there. But they go way too far here!

After all, "Baby Names Bible" is hardly the trendiest book title out there, ladies. Couldn't you have gone with "Manual" or "Guide" or something a little more, I don't know...stylish?