The Name Book: Over 10,000 Names--Their Meanings, Origins, and Spiritual Significance

by Dorothy Astoria

Comprehensive book of 12,000+ names, including their meanings, origins, and spiritual significance with supporting Scripture.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Parenting, Christian

298 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

Reviews

[Iroquois]

for each name it includes :

*Name & its variants
*lang/cultural origin
*inherent meaning
*spiritual connotation
*related scripture quote

[Agnes]

not bad...it's helping me for writing stories..

[Brooke]

Many of the etiologies offered in this text are either incomplete or entirely incorrect.

[emyrose8]

The hardest thing about this book is that the boy and girl names are mixed together.

[Gonzalo]

Interesting book with a vast list of names, with origins, meanings, languages, etc. Though a research on internet shows different meaning for some of the names, which makes me doubt about the source, the book is a great and fun way to start highlighting names that you like. At the end, it was not us who chose it, but a friend who passed by, saw the ones highlighted, accidentally landed on L and said, "Lidia, I like it" and left the room knowing that he had just chosen our daughter's name.

[Josh K]

I ended up taking the cover off of the book because I found it to distracting .... which means it's a good cover design! I have several name books that I keep handy for my writing. This is one of them.

[Wolfie]

A thorough reference, in comparison to a previous book, with thousands of names and their meanings ( not sure I trust completely), origins, and spiritual significance. You can’t read straight through, but dip into this book, following curiosity from one name to the next.

[Sasha Dofflemeyer]

Cute, fairly comprehensive baby name book.

[Rhonda]

Love this book as a reference!!! Great tools for the dreamer's life!!

[Herb Cotton]

Good Read - I keep it nearby and look up the names of the new people I meet.

[Rachel Schaffer]

Didn't really discover anything new

[Devon Munn]

This is one of the three books that feeds my obsession with names, however don't entirely trust what the meaning of the names given in the book, I've read some reviews saying that some of the meanings behind the names are incorrect, so only read the names and their variations, skip over the meanings, however, if your looking for a book or names, I'd probably recommend this one

[Anne Hamilton]

I know a lot of people who consider this their favourite book of names.

However, I agree with Brooke's review when she says: Many of the etiologies offered in this text are either incomplete or entirely incorrect.

Of all the many name books I have, I regard this as the least useful. And that's saying something because many of the books I have are truly spartan in their approach to the background of names and often list simply one word as the meaning.

Sometimes I can see where Astoria has had a leap of insight and I nod to myself over the spiritual significance. But generally I am baffled by the level of misinformation, assumption and guesswork.

I'm not against guessing - I use it a lot when I am trying to work out the original meaning of a name - but it needs to be backed up by at least circumstantial evidence, if not "proof". Not even circumstantial evidence is apparent here.

[A. Moses Levitt]

pada dasarx, seperti para buku yg lain, buku ini memberikan sejumlah informasi lama n baru mengenai arti dan asal nama atau sebutan itu...kebanyakan berhubungan dengan agama, iman, dan Tuhan...(knp ya?)

[Jamie]

One of my favorite go-to books on names and meanings. I love that each one is paired with a Bible verse, but for a few I've found that I wish the author had thought a little more about it being more "life-giving" or encouraging; some of them seem ill-fitting.

[Amanda]

Interesting. I like the scriptures, although have no idea how each was chosen for each name. We used this along with Tikki Tikki Tembo to talk about names and their meanings.

[Lindy]

Sometimes in our spiritual search it starts with a name and gives us the direction we are looking for in our life and creative writing.

[Ika Manurung]

I have the translation book in Indonesian.
Recommended for find out our children names as our pray through their meanings.

[Jeffrey Philips]

Great book for the meaning of people's names.

[Ben Azadi]

Cool book on the history of where names come from, and their meanings and spiritual significance.