We’re sitting here talking baby names with my sister-in-law, who has a baby due on Halloween (and is rejecting all my charmingly Satan-themed baby name suggestions).  She referred me to the NameVoyager applet at BabyNameWizard.com, which has kept me entertained for over an hour.  There’s no end to the fascinating statistical nuggets that can be unearthed from the strata in its oddly archaeological interface.  Ponder the sudden collapse of “Wong” at the turn of the 19th century!  Marvel at Reese Witherspoon’s amazing power to singlehandedly make “Ava” spike twenty-fold in popularity!  Puzzle at the reprehensible “Glenna”’s staying power as a female alternative to “Glenn” well into the 1960s!

I used NameVoyager to watch the recent explosion of the made-up girls’ name “Nevaeh”–”heaven” spelled backward, and probably the only baby name ever born on MTV Cribs.  You can also enjoy the parallel rise of “Neveah,” for Cranium rejects who haven’t quite mastered backward spelling yet.

A New York Times headline has already asked the waggish follow-up question about boys named “Lleh,” but I’d like to suggest a different companion name.  We considered “Nevaeh” as a girl’s name last year–not for our love of Christian rock, but out of devotion to the all-too-sparse directorial oeuvre of Diane Keaton.  Nevaeh for a girl, Pugnignah for a boy.