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Strollerderby
100 Cool Baby Names You’ve Never Heard Of
When I call my 5-year-old daughter’s name at the playground in our neighborhood, it seems as if all of the girls turn around. That’s because my daughter’s name is Ruby, which may not be very popular nationwide, but is very trendy in my neck of the woods (Park Slope, Brooklyn). Although I love the name dearly (and have no regrets about her name), I can safely say it is no longer a “cool” baby name. Am I the slightest bit disappointed that Ruby’s name has only grown in popularity and is not as unusual as I had hoped? Perhaps.
Why are parents these days constantly on the lookout for the next unusual name? As my colleague KJ recently wrote, “what we’re searching for is a name that no one’s used yet, scouring the top baby name lists for monikers like Purple or Whipcord. But name your child Snapfree and someone will surely follow: there’s something about baby names that follows an indefinable zeitgeist.”
Originality seems to be the key to baby naming these days. In fact, in Babble’s recent baby name poll, 90% of those who responded said that a name’s popularity would make them less likely to choose it for their child. And nearly 90% said that as long as they liked a name, they wouldn’t mind if it was ”out of style.”
The researchers who analyzed baby name trends have attributed the increase in unusual baby names to a broader cultural shift from encouraging conformity to emphasizing difference.
Pamela Redmond Satran, co-author of “Beyond Ava and Aiden” recently scoured name statistics and came up with “100 Cool Uncommon Baby Names.” When she says “uncommon,” she means really uncommon – as in used for 25 or fewer babies in 2009.
By sorting through 25,000 names, Redmond Satran came up with 50 boys’ names and 50 girls’ names that fit her criteria: ”a name with a genuine provenance (as opposed to a jury-rigged Lizzeth or Zhane), that is attractive (sorry, Ethel) and feels contemporary (bye-bye, Ethelred), yet is used for only a handful of babies each year.”
So what did she come up with? Here’s a selection of 20 of her discoveries:
Boys
Balthazar
Calloway
Clancy
Hamish
Kermit
Orson
Rufus
Vaughan
Osborne
Romulus
Girls
Jezebel
Fleur
Paz
Sinead
Snow
Valentine
Tulip
Tamsen
Lake
Vita
I’m curious what qualifies these names as “cool?” Are they cool simply because they’re unusual? What do you think? Would you consider naming your child any of these names? And now that they’ve been identified as “cool” and “unusual,” do you think they’re destined to surge in popularity?
Photo: flickr/Robert Crum
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26 Comments
Bean's Mom commented on Jul 30 10 at 9:27 amThose names do not seem cool to me. Those names just scream, “I have parents who try too hard.”
kat commented on Jul 30 10 at 9:48 amI like a lot of these names and maybe it’s great that parents are trying harder and not just going for the usual. We just named our newborn daughter Ellora Valentina Rosemarie. Long name, but lots of options, and matches her brother’s 2 middle names name. Current nicknames include Ellie-Rose and Rosey, since she’s an extremely rosy little baby. At the playground when I call her name, people will probably think I am saying Laura, which is fine by me since it’s also uncommon nowadays and is also my sister’s name.
Jen commented on Jul 30 10 at 10:15 amAs a certified fem Sci-fi geek…. Orson, Valentine, and Romulus could peg you as a real certifiable sci-fi nerd. Ref: Ender’s Game and Star Trek. Yes, I know Romulus is the name of the legendary founder of Rome… but I think more people think of Star Trek.
Kermit>> Kids are cruel and the Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog jokes would never end……
jennifer commented on Jul 30 10 at 10:19 amKermit the kid here, wishing my parents had understood the reason my name is so unique for little boys is because it has been permanently assigned in peoples’ minds to a beloved puppet.
JZ commented on Jul 30 10 at 10:35 amRufus? Seriously?
Lucky commented on Jul 30 10 at 11:35 amWe considered Fleur, but I didn’t want a one-syllable name. We chose Luna, which is in the top 1000, but only just. And it suits our daughter perfectly. Bonus: it drives my in-laws crazy!
Lems commented on Jul 30 10 at 11:55 amWe chose Osborne for our first baby, due in October, for various reasons (family friend’s last name, to honor my husband’s Nebraskan heritage (go Huskers), and because it has a great nickname) – but a major reason was because we thought it was both distinguished and had no potential to become trendy. I give up. It is literally impossible to find a name that fits all the criteria set by naming guides and yet won’t eventually become stylish. So I say, just go with what you love, regardless of how popular (or not) the name is. You and your kid are the ones who have to live with it, and it’s not the end of the world if someone else uses the name too.
alison commented on Jul 30 10 at 12:34 pmBut once a list like this gets published, you can forget about those names remaining unusual for very long. And some of those names are already oozing with hipster cred (Rufus, Osborne) and Harry Potter cred (Fleur), so I would imagine that in 5-10 years, they may increase in popularity.
alison commented on Jul 30 10 at 12:52 pmI just went and looked at the full lists and most of those names would have most of us rolling our eyes at the parents. What would you think if you met a boy named Day or Birch? A girl named Ambrosia or Tulip? I would think the parents were either trying too hard or were high when they though up names. This woman gets paid for this?
Elyse commented on Jul 30 10 at 12:59 pmSomehow, I don’t see Talfryn hitting the Slope big time!
http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/68-fantastic-british-names-gathered-while-watching-bbc-credits-over-the-years
Elyse commented on Jul 30 10 at 1:00 pmFleur and Luna, both names out of “Harry Potter!” Coincidentally, my friend named her daughter Luna. I wonder what affect the books have had on baby name choices…I for one am a fan of Hermione!
John commented on Jul 30 10 at 2:14 pmNamed our son Aristotle Rose, he is now 15. He has never had a kid in his class who shared his name. He uses a number of nicknames depending on where he is at. Tottle at home, Aris in the theater and ‘stottle when playing soccer or running track.
Gretchen Powers commented on Jul 30 10 at 2:42 pmI think if you have a serious reason why you choose a name, like naming after someone or the name having actual meaning, it’s better than just being, like, oh, I like that name. The latter seems so temporal. That said, I do like “Birch”, but it was the name of one of my grama’s dogs…same for Otto…same for Hildie…I always got the line, when I was a kid, “oh, that’s so and so’s dogs name!”
Shaina (Food for My Family) commented on Jul 30 10 at 2:57 pmWe chose family names from Norway. (My husband’s full, birth name is Ole Olmanson.) People constantly think we made them up. Our goal was to be unique but to do it in a way that was meaningful to us.
Linda commented on Aug 01 10 at 10:55 pmAwful!!!
bob commented on Aug 02 10 at 11:13 amThey’re ‘cool’ because Pamela Redmond Satran has declared them thus. That’s what she does. She’s been promoting Rufus particularly for a long time. Even declared it one of the most popular so far this year, based on search logs and ignoring the fact that nearly nobody is using it.
Marj commented on Aug 06 10 at 4:16 pmThat backs up my opinion on cool, Bob. I’ve come to the conclusion that cool is whatever a small group of people who decide it is. So the fashion industry is just a cliche of fashion people telling us what is fashionable, and now what names are cool.
Also, there is a reason Jezebel is not a popular name for girls. It is a slang term for whore.
Rosana commented on Aug 19 10 at 3:30 pmI combine family names to come up with my kids names and make sure that the middle name is in Spanish. Other than that, I would not mind if other kids had my kids names because, they are my kids’ names, the rest of the kids are copycats :)
Nicholle commented on Aug 19 10 at 3:55 pmI don’t think Jezebel and Kermit will catch on. This doesn’t seem like a particularly well thought out list to me. Some of these names might have been used by the 25 nerdiest or dumbest people who had kids that year. They might not all be unheard of because only the coolest of parents are using these names. She needs names with reasons why they are cool, not just a random list.
Lucky commented on Aug 19 10 at 5:17 pm@Elyse- It took reading these comments over again to realize I just exposed myself as an HP fanatic. LOL I honestly did not chose Luna in the context of a Rowling novel, just a happy coincidence.
Calmama commented on Aug 20 10 at 11:21 amWhen we were trying to decide the name for our first baby, I read somewhere that it can be helpful to imagine yelling it on the playground to see how it sounds. Somehow I just can’t picture myself calling out “Romulus, time to go home!”
BNE commented on Aug 20 10 at 7:23 pmUgh. So cruel. Chances are very high that most children with highly unusual names will hate them and wish for something more normal. And cruel nicknames are even more likely when someone has a truly unsual name too. Weird spelling agravate kids for life too. The trendy ones are ok, but todays Bella and Aiden are tomorrows Gertrude and Elmer (trendy names in their time). The best thing parents can do is go with a classic name that no one can guess what decade your kid was born from. Seriously. Your kids will thank you later for thinking of it from their perspective.
reba commented on Aug 20 10 at 10:26 pmIf you like something, it is pretty much guaranteed that a jillion other people like you (and there ARE a jillion other people JUST LIKE YOU and as profoundly hip and original as you — and hey, I live in KENTUCKY and there are about 12 Rubys in our preschool) are going to like the same thing. Just for goodness sake abandon the creative spelling. We all have enough problems with that.
Loril commented on Sep 23 10 at 9:38 amComments
Who would name their daughter Jezebel — one of the most famous prostitutes in history?
CW commented on Nov 14 11 at 12:20 amEver since I worked with a lady named Tamsyn, I’ve loved that name and wondered why it wasn’t more popular.
Miranda commented on Jan 03 12 at 5:07 amThe only name I would use in that list would be lake, and it would be much more likely if the baby were a boy!
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