The Name Therapist ― How Growing Up With My Odd Name Taught Me Everything You Need to Know About Yours

As a child, Duana Taha was obsessively uncomfortable with her unusual name (an inheritance from her Egyptian father and Irish mother), knowing the woman on theRomper Room television show would never "see" Duana in the mirror, and realizing no souvenir shop had a licence plate or hairbrush with her name on it. She was fascinated with names as a result, and this all-consuming interest set her on a path from name nerd, to name snob, to name therapist.
Duana realized that names are more than just a means of identification in a first-grade classroom or office tower but was surprised they were rarely discussed after the baby-name book had been consulted. Duana satisfied her own interest in names first as a reader of young adult fiction, and later as a TV writer and name advice columnist onLaineyGossip.com, discovering almost everyone has a name story, and that people love to share their thoughts on what they really mean--and now they have the chance.
In a romp through everything to do with North American and global naming traditions and trends, Duana searches for fascinating name stories as she brings us the truth about taste from bestselling name experts, the perceived relationship between names and success on campus at Harvard and the University of Toronto, baby naming in hipster pockets of Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and visits a strip club to see whether there really are such things as "stripper names." And as she learns to love being the only Duana everywhere she goes--although she still uses a Starbucks name--she comes to appreciate her moniker and how it defined and freed her.
Speaking to people who love their names, hate their names, changed them, passed them to their children, lovingly bestowed them on their pets or whose names, like Jennifer, were always one of a crowd; and for anyone who has wondered if "you" by any other name would smell as sweet, The Name Therapist seeks to discover the stories behind the ways we identify ourselves every single day.

DUANA TAHA was an odd child with a large vocabulary and a small sense of when to stop talking. She wasn't allowed to watch much television, so she gorged on TV when her parents weren't looking and proceeded to become thoroughly and happily addicted to pop culture and social psychology, obsessing over the strange ways we humans live our lives. These days, Taha obsesses over fictional humans as a screenwriter on hit shows includingDegrassi: The Next Generation, Lost Girl, and the upcoming Lost & Found Studios. She is a popular contributor toLaineyGossip.com, where she discusses television and feminism, and in her popular baby name column "Duana Names" is valiantly trying to bring back the name Bruno. Her opinions on name trends have appeared inThe New York Observer, The Globe and Mail, and the Daily Mail. She has never met another Duana. The author lives in Toronto, ON.