People are paying up to $29K for the perfect baby name
(Fox News) - Crib, car seat, baby wipe warmer—there are so many things expectant parents need to buy. Here's something else for the shopping list: a baby-naming consultant. And "the ultimate exercise in personal branding," as Quartz puts it, is not cheap.
Swiss branding firm Erfolgswelle, for instance, charges more than $29,000 to choose the perfect moniker for a soon-to-arrive bundle of joy, Bloomberg reports. Agency head Marc Hauser says his team spends about 100 hours coming up with the perfect name, which includes verifying there's no trademark on the name and consulting historians to determine whether a potential name has "an aggravating past." He uses his own name—Marc—as an example, saying his firm wouldn't suggest it because it's linked to an ancient Roman god of war.
If you'd rather squirrel away that 30 grand, say for a college fund, New York-based My Name for Life will help you name junior starting at several hundred dollars.
If a baby namer knows what they're doing, "it's worth every penny," Albert Mehrabian, who wrote The Baby Name Report Card, tells Bloomberg's Polly Mosendz.