When we were kicking around baby names, we did do a little legwork. Since my name was popular for both boys and girls of my generation, I was often referred to in class as "Kelly M." and it was annoying. If I'd been a bit savvier, I would have made them at least give me a good variation on my name, like "K-Money" or something, but no. Anyhow, I was determined my child would never suffer the same fate, so I checked all possible names in the Social Security website, just to make sure we weren't picking anything too popular. However, I can say with certainty that it never occurred to me to hire a name consultant or to think of our name choice as "branding."
When I read this article, my first thought was, "If these folks are so worried about the baby's name, how are they ever going to manage to survive new parent anxiety?" Because, my god, there's all kinds of nerve-wracking parental decisions you have to make, and the name choice, while pretty permanent, is one of the milder ones. Perhaps you could just hire a consultant to raise the baby. My second thought was, "Branding? Eeeew." Yeah, yeah, names make an impression, blah blah, but do we have to describe our children as products that need to be sold? Call me a big ol' socialist, but when it comes to children, the marketing talk icks me out. And that's coming from the mom of a kid who can make your socks whiter than the leading brand.
