Romantic names for girls – loosely defined as creative and elaborate names that suggest an earlier era and a Latinate emotionality – have become more fashionable in recent years.  As we grow more comfortable with the notion of equality for girls, we may also become confident enough to give our daughters elaborately feminine names rather than having to make our point with androgynous, modern monikers like Blair or Blake.

Of course, not every romantic name is a feminist statement.  These names may just feel fresh again after decades of sleeker, more straightforward girls’ names like Mary and Betty, Karen and Lisa.  Even Jennifer and Ashley pale in the face of these flagrantly feminine names.

The rise of Isabella and Sophia to the Top 10 means that Romantic Names are now mainstream.  Some choices further off the beaten track:

ADORIA

ANASTASIA

ANGELICA

ANTONIA

ARABELLA

ARTEMESIA

AURORA

CELESTIA

EVANGELINA

FORSYTHIA

GABRIELLA

ISADORA

JULIANA

LILLIANA

MAGDALENA

MARIELLA

MELISANDE

NATALYA

PALOMA

RAFFAELA

RAMONA

SERAPHINA

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So you’ve scoured the Earth and still haven’t come up with the perfect name for your baby.  Maybe it’s time to look skyward to broaden your horizons.  There’s a whole galaxy of interesting and evocative celestial names to choose from, including those of planets and their satellites, constellations and single stars.  These range from simple human names like Faye and Helene to those carrying the romantic resonance of Greek and Roman myth.

First, some names of planets and their satellites:

AMALTHEA

ARAGO

ARIEL

ATLAS

BIANCA

CALLISTO—the second largest satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Galileo

CALYPSO

CORDELIA

CRESSIDA

DESDEMONA

DESPINA

DIONE

ELARA

GALATEA Read the rest of this entry »

To check out the latest trends in French baby names, we turned to a true expert, Stéphanie Rapoport, creator of the popular site meilleursprénoms.com and author of L’Officiel des Prénoms 2010.  For anyone conversant in French, the site is filled with interesting lists, charts and analysis on French baby names.

And for those whose high school French is as shaky as mine, we asked Stéphanie to give us a recap, which she’s been kind enough to do:

“Baby names in France have never been shorter: exit Sébastien, Alexandre, Frédéric, Caroline, Nathalie, Angélique—the popular names of the 1980’s.  Emma, Léa, Clara now take the limelight as the most popular feminine names, while Lucas, Enzo and Nathan dominate the masculine ranking tables.

As a result, diminutives such as Lou, Tom, Théo and Alex are doing wonders.  Few analysts would have predicted such a phenomenon in a culture which used to disdain diminutives as merely “half names.

Ending sounds are also shaping to a large extent what becomes trendy and what does not.  Fashionable feminine names tend to end in the vowel ‘a’ (Emma, Sara, Léa, Clara, Lola, Éva, Louna and Lina being in the forefront).  Then there’s the explosion caused by Lilou, a new name which has led to the discovery of Louane and renewed interest in hyphenated names such as Lou-Anne.  For boys, names with ‘eo’ vowel juxtapositions abound, as in Léo, Théo, Mathéo, also o-endings (Hugo, Enzo) and names ending in ‘an’—Nathan, Ethan, Kylian, Evan, Esteban. Read the rest of this entry »

It was our very own message boards that tipped us off to the trend: Obsessive Name-Loving Teens, as the forum is titled, is where the youngest nameberryites meet, hang out, swap tales of how weird their friends and parents think they are.   But we don’t think they’re weird at all.  In fact, when we were their age, we would have been spending all our spare time in the same place. Guest blogger KRISTINE RASMUSSEN, one of the board regulars, tells us here what it’s like to be a name-loving teen.

Wandering through the bookstore with Grandma as a little girl, I came across a book that called to me. It was square, blue, and had storks on the cover. Flipping through it, I found that it had hundreds and hundreds of names. Fascinated, I ran to Grandma. And so, at not even eight, I got my very first baby name book.

In junior high school, I started to write. A character needs a name– scratch that, not just any name– THE name.. Desperate for The Perfect Name for my character, I went to the bookstore. I couldn’t find a book called The Perfect Name for Your Character, only ones about the perfect name for your baby!  I was thirteen, and boy, did I get a look from the cashier! It was a baby name book, and I was a teenager.

But then, naming characters wasn’t enough. Girls in my high school were having babies, and I was inspired to look for names for my own future children. Ethan and Lily were my favorites for three years, but then Ethan boomed, and so did Lily. What was I to do? Let them be Ethan #3 and Lily #4? No! I needed something I didn’t hear on little children I met, and so I pulled out the old, falling-apart name book.

I went through phases- Audrey, Adeline, Grace, Isabella and Lucy. . . Zachary and Sam. . I started mentioning names to my mother, and I got the same look from her that I got from the cashier at Barnes & Noble. “Are you pregnant?” I explained that I just liked– no, loved– names.

I starting looking up my friend’s names, listening to what mothers called their children at the mall. . When friends of the family named their newborn daughter Serenity, I thought they were crazy. So many glorious, beautiful names, and they name their baby Serenity?

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In honor of the Academy Award nominations announced yesterday, one of our favorite bloggers, Abby Sandel, creator of the always informative and witty appellationmountain.net, continues the tradition she started last year with boys’ red carpet names, and has again searched through the annals of Oscar history to come up with some great lists of award-worthy female winners’ and characters’ names.

Ava, Audrey, Natalie, Grace, Olivia.  Is it my daughter’s kindergarten class roster, or a round-up of Hollywood screen legends?  With so many parents turning to Tinsel Town for inspiration, no wonder I’m confused.

Despite the popularity of borrowing a name from the big screen, plenty of appealing choices remain underused.  Here’s a short list culled from Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominees and winners, and the characters they played, from the 1920s through today.

LEADING LADIES

Some of these are easy to imagine on a girl born today, while others might not be quite ready for a comeback.  All of them offer at least one glamorous namesake.

ANOUK

BETTE

CLAUDETTE

DOROTHY

FAYE

GLYNIS

GREER

GRETA

HALLE

HATTIE Read the rest of this entry »