Are you a big fan of unsolicited e-mail?

Me neither. :) Believe it or not, though, there's a bright side to spam -- at least for those of us in the market for a baby name.

Spammers try to make it look like their messages come from actual individuals. Therefore, most spam appears to be sent by people with legitimate first and last names (even though these people are totally fictitious).

So if you're stumped for a baby name, why not use your bulk folder as a way to brainstorm? Skimming through your spam can be especially helpful for two reasons:

1. You get a brand new batch of spam names every day (whether you want them or not!), free of charge. In other words, you don't have to go out and search for these names -- they come right to you.


2. The names aren't grouped or ordered by first letter, origin, length, meaning or popularity. Each name in the series is a surprise, so you're more likely to pay attention as you scan the list.

For example, as I write this, I have over 60 spam messages in my Gmail spam folder. Here are nearly all of the first names from these emails:

Female Names - Meghan, Araceli, Lula, Jess, Elizabeth, Lonnie, Anita, Betty, Leta, Reina, Barbara, Ophelia, Teresa, Addie, Tessa, Dorothy, Kimberly, Nadia, Carol, Jinah, Jeanne, April

Male Names - Karl, Rico, Brandon, Billy, Kris, Kasmir, Charles, Manjinder, Darrel, Frederico, Hezi, Jeremi, Osmar, Albert, Michael, Roosevelt, Randolph, Dusty, Richard, Mark, Kermit, Jeffrey, William, Leroy, Mauricio, Reid, Mitch, Marc, Parker, Anthony, Jermaine, Kurtis

Not a bad selection, eh? And these are just what accumulated over a single day in a single email account. Just imagine how many thousands of names are collected weekly by several email accounts (which is what many of us have).

If you decide to try this method, the only thing I would caution you against is opening any of your spam mail. Some spam (when opened) can infect your machine with computer-crashing viruses, so it's best to just make note of the interesting names you see, then delete your spam en masse as usual.