Full-time baby name consultants are getting $350 an hour

What’s in a name? A few hundred dollars if you’re an increasingly sought-after baby name consultant.

Couples are no longer naming their precious offspring after their sweethearts, or casually flipping through books for inspiration.

Instead, moms and dads who want to give their kids every edge they can in an increasingly competitive world are paying experts like Colleen Slagen, 34, and Morgan Timm, 29, hundreds of dollars to give their children the perfect name.

Slagen has always been fascinated with baby names, but hadn’t considered the possibility of a full-time gig in the field until her friends expressed how helpful her feedback had been when they were choosing names for their children.

“I think a lot of people have a pretty good sense of what they want, but they want a third-party opinion,” the naming revealer told The Post.

“They’re wanting validation or a deep check of the name they’re leaning towards,” she explained.

Boston first advertised her services with her company, Naming Bebe, in local Facebook groups. She started posting TikTok videos of her work in 2023.

Slagen said she found so much interest that she quit her job as a nurse and began helping parents choose baby names full time.

The headline titan gets about 15 clients a month at $350 each — earning her $63,000 a year.

What sounds like easy work can be a challenge – names usually have to fit extremely specific qualifications. Some requests she has received in the past are that the name has only been used 25 times in the past year or has specific sounds.

Slagen seats open at the beginning of the month and usually fill up within an hour.

As for Slagen, she prefers to keep the names of her three children a secret, but said she chose their names using Celtic classics or family staples.

Meanwhile, Midwesterner Timm said she signs up about 25 clients a month charging $125 to earn about $37,500 a year. She hasn’t had her baby yet, but she’ll have the perfect name ready when she does.

“There is widespread interest,” she confirmed to The Post. “A lot of people are looking for that unique, special, but still not weird or weird name.”

Both professionals begin their processes by providing clients with questionnaires that they use to guide their deep dives.

They ask them to list what names they are considering, what names are off limits and why and even how many syllables they want the name to be.

At the end, Slagen provides parents with a PDF that’s usually about six pages long, and Timm writes about 15 pages, listing both the names they recommend and why.

“People now understand that names are a form of self-expression that we’re choosing for another person,” Slagen explained.

After all, thanks to social media, everyone has a personal brand to some degree these days – not just celebrities.

“[The name] it’s like a snapshot of your values ​​and your priorities and your style, so I think it puts a little more pressure on what you choose and how other people are going to interpret it and what assumptions people are going to make about you,” she said. .

Slagen said that along with people putting more emphasis on choosing the perfect name, there are two main reasons why people seek her services.

“Many couples are coming to me because they just can’t agree on a name. They have different styles,” Slagen said.

Or, “they’re naming a second or third child, they’ve already used favorite names, and they’re having a hard time finding a name that matches their siblings and that they love as much as the name they’ve chosen for him the first or second child”.

Experts added that the paradox of choice has led people to seemingly endless lists of names.

Meanwhile, the expansion of our online social circles has led people to believe that certain names are taken or more popular than they really are.

For example, Olivia was the most common baby name in 2023, but only one in every 100 girls out of 3.58 million babies born last year was given the name.

Some clients have very personal reasons for turning to a baby name consultant.

Timm revealed that she once had a client who had “a very nick name” (she gave Lulu as an example) that she believed “kept her alive” and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to her child.

“Throughout her life, she felt like people wouldn’t take her seriously because of her name. So she really wanted a name that would inspire confidence and ability for her son,” Timm said.

And while the entire process is highly detailed and personalized, experts have noticed some similarities.

“I’d say the most common request I get is classic, but not overdone. Names that feel like they’re going to be around forever, but they’re not in the top ten right now,” Slagen said.

To find this out, Slagen scours baby name forums, books, Social Security Administration records and other sources to find names that fit the family’s criteria and style.

But other requirements can be very specific. She was asked for names with specific forms of figurative language included in the first and last name and given three Excel spreadsheets of names categorized by each partner’s opinion of the name, if it was a contender, and names they could not use.

However, they were not even the most difficult tasks she has taken on.

“The hardest jobs I get are people who want to change their child’s name. It’s the hardest to work on because it involves a lot of emotion,” Slagen admitted.

She explained that some people name their children without much thought — often because they don’t know the gender or think a name will come to them when the time comes — and quickly realize it doesn’t feel right.

Others decide to choose a new name after receiving negative feedback about a unique name they have chosen.

This is why many seem to find consultants useful.

“I have a lot of people who are like, I want a quirky, unique name that won’t make me mature,” Timm said.