One of the most interesting – and sometimes hardest – things that parents get to do is name their baby. A lot goes into the choosing of a name and the reasons behind why that name was given. And there are many people getting the opportunity each year to name the next generation. In fact, in the United States alone there were almost 4.3 million babies born just during 2006. Granted, the most popular names that year, according to the Social Security Administration, happened to be Jacob and Michael for boys, and Emily and Emma for girls, and some people were thinking about their favorite pieces of literature when they named their children.

For many people who choose to name their baby after literature, they do so because the name means something close to them – they really enjoyed the story or a particular character in it and they want to have a close association.

Genie Briggs, a Baltimore, Md., mother, has experience with this firsthand. She named her oldest child Avery after the character Shug Avery in The Color Purple.

"I love when I tell people that Avery was named after Shug Avery because it gives her name a part of me," says Briggs. "It tells her that I thought about her name and I wanted it to be special. I am the one who loved the book and the character left an impression on me, and I guess I wanted to give something to my kids that they would always have."

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