Gone are the days when prospective parents simply gave their babies a family name. It's not as common as it used to to pass down a name from generation to generation. These days new parents are naming their kids after fruits and planets. Sound crazy? Well it's not. With all of the baby naming resources on the internet available to parents, it's no wonder so many weird names are popping up on birth announcements.

And not just weird names, people are taking regular, every day names and twisting them up. Have you ever seen William spelled "Wylliem"? No, I didn't think so. How about Jacob spelled "Jakub"? So where does all this creativity come from? The weonderful World Wide Web, of course!

There are more tech tools to help you name your baby than there are baby names themselves. One simple tool I found at babynamer.storkavenue.com is a form into which you input the sex, either Male, Female or Suprise!, the first letter and country of origin. Out comes a list of potential names for your baby. Another high tech baby naming tool is from babyzone.com. You input the sex of your baby and click a button. Tada! You've got a list of the most scrambled up names you've ever seen. Qucronar and Xetali are two of the names that showed up for female suggestions. I can't imagine anyone actually using those names, but you never know.

BabyNameWizard.com offers an "interactive visualization" of a name. What's that, you ask? Sounds fancy but it's really not. It's a nifty java program that graphs the popularity of names you type into it. You can type a few letters and get a graph for all the popular names starting ewith those letters. Pretty to look at but not useful for finding a special name for your baby.

Parenting.com is more staight forward with some lists to get you thinking creatively. There's a list of Cool Names, Comfy Names, Imported Names, Celebrity Names and Nature Names to mention a few. (For the record, comfy names are names like Fred and Billie.)

If you're into family approval, head over to babycenter.com with your list of potential names. They offer a handy tool to let your friends and family vote on the names you have chosen. Just input the baby names and email addresses of the voters and you're half way there to finding the perfect name that has everyone's approval.

If you're into more statistically correct methods, take a peak at pregnancy.org's Name-O-Matic tool. You pick a letter and get a very long list to choose from. Click on a name and see when or if it was ever on the top 100 list. Check all of the potential names on your list to find one that hasn't been over-used, unless of course you're looking for a name like that.

In case you're just looking for a normal name with a little pizazz, try familytrackers.com. They offer s imple tool to find alternate spellings for names you have chosen. Not only do they give different spelling variations, you'll see names that look and sound like your name, too. This baby naming tech tool can be helpful when you like a name but you want it to be a little different.

Whatever method you use when choosing a name for your baby, choose wisely and think ahead. Wandalyn might sound great today but how about when she's headed for an important job interview in 20 years? Or just imagine a shy little boy named Deveau trying to make friends in kindergarten when no one can pronounce his name. If you remember to think ahead and imagine your child at different times in his or her life, you'll most likely choose a name we can all live with. Like remembering names isn't hard enough for most of us already!