Me, A Name Expert!

In a moment, you'll see that this is a brag, but not a brag where I'm a self-declared "oooohhh I'm a name expert!!11!!)

Many of you who regularly read my blog already know that I'm a bit of a name nerd. OK, ok, ok… name snob. I admit it freely. I AM a name snob. I love names and learning about them and offering advice (when solicited, of course). For the past year or so, I've been the Team Leader for BabyNamesWorld's Personal Name Advisors, and acted as a PNA myself as well. It's been fun and educational, and very rewarding for the most part. It's really been fun.

But with all of the issues with Gracie, and getting her services, and Anneliese getting older and potty training, and all the other demands of Motherhood with all three of the girls, time to run the team smoothly and checking in on the team regularly throughout every single day go to be too much. The team is a great team, but somewhat high maintenance, and definitely is not at the point where they can function self-reliantly. There must be constant discussion and guidance for the team to work well, so checking in every other day doesn't work well, and as a Team Leader, you have to be very visible to the team members. It just works better that way. And to the team's detriment, my kids have been requiring more time from me. I've also been making more effort to spend time away from the computer when my husband is home, and have been allowing Juliana more time on the computer as part of our reward system. So the little things add up.

Recently, after having a discussion with the BNW Administrator, I realized that it would be best if I stepped down as the Team Leader for the Personal Name Advisors on BabyNamesWorld in favor of joining the Name Experts Team. So far, I've gotten two of my reference books and am looking forward to receiving the others. The site will be moving in a new direction this year, even as they continue to build the database. And I must say, the database is quite impressive. For the past year, it has been essentially built from the ground up by the team of Name Experts that are in place. They have to physically go into each name in the database to approve or disprove a name, as well as add verified historical information to the names. That means that by the time it's "done" it will be the most accurate and largest online database for names.

I think that this is all wickedly cool, and now I get to be part of it, YAY ME!