Finding a stork by its name.

Finding a stork by its name is a small act of matchmaking. The LifeTrack White Stork SW Germany study keeps a list of named birds, each with a tag, a route, and a temperament of its own, and somewhere on that list is a stork that suits the child you have in mind. The trick is not to overthink it. A name does most of the work for you.

Read the names aloud

Say the names before you choose. Amadeus sounds grand and musical. Balou sounds big and gentle. Ella is soft and certain. Hansi is bright and homely. A child will carry a stork's name for years, so it should feel good in the mouth, easy to say at bedtime, memorable enough to scrawl under a drawing.

Match the story to the child

Some children will love a traveller, a bird whose points leap across a sea in a single bound. Others will love a homebody, a bird that keeps coming back to the same roof. There is a stork for each of them. A bold child might take to a bird who crossed first in the season. A patient child might love the quiet one who transmits rarely and rewards waiting. The study holds every kind of story, because the birds themselves are every kind of bird.

Let the name carry the feeling

A name is also a small promise. It carries whatever you felt when you chose it, the warmth, the hope, the particular affection for this particular child. Years later, when the child asks where the name came from, the answer will be a memory, and that is more than most gifts can offer.

The right one finds you

In the end, the right stork is usually the one whose name you keep returning to. You will scan the list, hesitate over a few, and then find yourself drawn back to one. That pull is not logic. It is the same instinct that makes a name settle on a child in the first place.

Pick the bird whose name you would want to say a thousand times, because you will. The stork will not mind being chosen. It is already busy, far away, going home.