We are expecting kid #2 in August and husband and I are looking for name ideas. We don’t know the gender yet, so fire away.
The rules:
My husband does not want a super common name. So stay out of the top 50. For girls names preferably not in the top 100.
Nothing that starts with L or ends in “la”.
Preferably more than one syllable. Short names can sound funny with the last name.
I think that’s it.
Any ideas?
I have always wanted there to be a human named “Zaff”. It’s unique, it’s gender-neutral, and it’s close enough to “Zach” that it doesn’t sound completely bizarre.
If the human grows to be very tall, it may be referred to as “Zaff the Giraffe”, though I don’t know if I would consider this to be a problem or the most awesome thing that has ever happened. I suppose it depends on how self-conscious the human turns out to be.
My unused boy’s name was Duncan James. Have at it–I’m not having another child.
Murgatroyd
Crunk
Fangle
Snargboinger
Thudmuffin
Eeker
I’ll try and come up with some boys’ names too.
The problem with avoiding common names is that often everyone jumps for the same uncommon names at the same time. If I were going to uncommon, I’d make sure it was still a traditional name.
You can use the NameVoyager graphical name wizardto look by decades back to 1890.
Omegatron.
Oh, and top 50 names like Elizabeth and K©atharine can be shortened in a lot of ways. That allows a bit more wiggle room if you end up with, say, multiple Elizabeths around.
Also, consider taking a stroll down your family tree. You may find an ancestral name that you like. Back a few centuries, our family hit a pocket of unrelated women named Jerusha. That name never made it into the top 1,000.
Janet hasn’t been in the top 500 for awhile. Unless it made a comeback after 2009. NameVoyager only tracks to 2009.
All once common, now less so:
Judith
Marjorie
Margaret
Joyce
Dale
Selma
Agnes
Joan
Beatrice
Blanche
Adelaide - making a minor resurgence, maybe the next “in” name.
Eleanor - ditto the above.
Constance
Josephine
Francis
Richard
Alfred
Harold
Donald
All of the above are out of the top 100 for either sex. Louis and Louise start with an L, but are also out of the top 100. Charles, surprising to me, is out of the top 50.
I only like a few of the above names myself, but all are “traditional” in the U.S. and all appear underused in this generation.
ETA: I also have/had relatives named Melva and Myrtle, once semi-common names long vanished. By contrast I thought one of my grandmother’s name, Amelia, was incredibly old-fashioned, but now it has made a major comeback. Go figure.
Throckmorton
Agamemnon
Clytemnestra
Balthazar
Eurydice
Mordechai
Thelonius
Hieronymus
My wife and I will never have kids, but have our names picked out anyway.
For a girl, Clementine
For a boy, Albert
Joe
Congrats! How about Kylie for a girl?
David for a boy. I know it’s common but I love it.
Clementine? Like the fruit?
Seriously? Throckmorton???
If I had ever had one, my child would have been named Morgan LaFay.
Well, you’ve eliminated my favourite girl’s names (Lauren or Laurel); how about Marianne? And Walter for a boy - I like that name.
For girls:
Elise
Jovia
Tamara
Corrie
The state names - Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, Jersey (Dakota and Montana already being very popular)
Seconding **Clementine **(used by Ethan Hawke and his kid’s nanny for their girl.)
Boys:
Jon-Adam (We were going to use it, then SIL & BIL had Ayden-James and we’re loathe to look like we’re copying them.)
Woodson
Victor
Wyatt
Hadrian
Ralph and Bonita.
I’ve always thought Ethan to be a fine, strong name for a boy.
Perhaps Naomi for a girl.
I’m gonna keep pimping Darth Volvo as a name until somebody uses it, goddammit.
I’d never thought of it before, but ever since the Royal Wedding I’ve been dying to have another little girl so I can name her Pippa. (Short for Philippa.) So cute! Of course, I already have a Kate and a Will so if I had a Pippa I’d have to have a Harry, too, for the complete set.
Not going to happen.