In the end, when her eyes were weary and bleary from work, Nicholas and Alexa still were clear winners. Robbi Hess, Westside News Inc. editorial assistant, just completed her first published book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names. While there were many lessons learned along the way, Hess said one of the most comforting was that she was still pleased with the names she and her husband, Tim, chose for their two children. "I was really thrilled that when I was done with the book I still liked my children's names," Hess said. Hess, who resides in Albion, co-authored the book with Marcia Layton-Turner. The two authors began from scratch with only a proposed table of contents and a goal of collecting 30,000 names. They split the alphabet in half with Hess taking L through Z. They also included 150 specialty lists, like names of famous people's children, which they split up as well. For each name, they researched meanings and origins. Harvard Sociology Professor Stanley Lieberson wrote the book's foreword. Lieberson's research has focused on the impact of name selection. "Honestly, I never thought there would be that much research involved," Hess said. "I think the part I liked the best was finding the origins of names." Throughout the process she found the ordinary, the unusual and the utterly strange. Singer John Mellencamp naming his son Speck stands out to Hess as the most bizarre. "It is almost like naming him less than nothing," Hess said. Hess said publishing her first book, which took the authors about four months, is the pinnacle of a career that has focused on many different styles of writing. In addition to working for Westside News Inc., where she began as a freelance writer about six years ago, Hess also serves as the assistant editor for Business Strategies Magazine, writes business and medical articles, teaches classes at Writers and Books, produces a twice monthly column for an Orleans County newspaper and has three published pieces of fiction. Hess is currently drafting a proposal to write a book on how to best organize email. Her dream is to write a historical romance novel about a female reporter in the 1800s. Hess said some of the characters in the novel, which she has begun, are based on contacts she has made as a journalist. The Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names is available locally. 2004's most popular names February 26, 2006 |
