Five years ago, I used a Google Form to ask friends, family, and random readers of my blog to help us pick a name for our first-born child. Before I knew it, it was picked up by some other blogs, then news sites, then suddenly I was doing radio and TV interviews. We ended up with over 10,000 votes from all around the world.  Two months later our daughter was born, and the Internet had helped us pick the perfect name – Athena.

While it was certainly fun to be on TV and show off Google Forms, the best part of the experience was seeing all the great positive energy my little baby name project created.  People seemed to really enjoy this story of a geeky Googler asking the Internet to help name his kid, and were excited to vote, discuss suggestions, and pass the story on.

We are expecting again and we’d like to harness some of that positive energy for something more meaningful.  We are raising money for Save the Children so we can bring our new son into the world while helping kids around the world.

My wife and I (along with some other Googlers) have pledged to donate $1 for each vote –   see details in the FAQ.  For $1, Save the Children can provide one complete polio vaccination course for a child.  Just by voting, you will be helping a child in need.  If you would like to join us and donate $1 of your own, please go to this OneToday campaign.  Google OneToday makes donating to a good cause easy and fun.

If you’d like to help us name our baby and support a great charity at the same time, please vote on the Google Form (see below).  If you want to follow the votes and find out which name ends up on top, please go to my blog or follow me on Google+ or Twitter.

And if you ever need to name a baby of your own, I highly recommend Google Forms.  Setting up a form or survey is easy, and the results are automatically put into a spreadsheet for you as they come in.

Questions?  See the FAQ post or leave a comment below.