Buying Branded Babies

I'll try to keep this short because my goodness! I've been long-winded of late.

From the Wall Street Journal (by way of Salon), an article describing the latest trend among upwardly-mobile parents: hiring a professional baby namer.

These people seem to cost between $50 and $400, depending on whether you want them to just give you a few ideas or whether you want the whole numerology, astrology, history-of-the-name, etc. business.

Why are parents doing this? Because they understand that they're going to send their kids out into an extremely tight job market (not to mention the college admissions market, and perhaps even the preschool admissions market), and they want to confer the best advantages possible.

With a spooky sense of recognition that there are going to be a lot of people out there with the same talents and abilities as their (yet unborn) child, they're hoping, quite simply, to garner even the smallest edge by choosing a name that sticks in a future employer's head.

For $475, one family got the name Leah Marie McCombie; for $350, another got Natalie Dziello; for $50, Ava Mistretta; for $25, Max Phillip Kessler.

How much did Pran and Savita pay the astrologer who named their baby Uma?

Related story: Nanopolitan's Your Name On Google.