Brilliant Baby Names You’re REALLY Using
Another year, another batch of utterly brilliant Babyberry names!
So far this year, 175 new arrivals have been announced by our international community of friends and followers: 105 girls and 70 boys.
The beautiful baby names our Berries choose never fail to delight us, but this year’s picks have been especially impressive — not just in style, but in sheer variety too. There have been a staggering 324 unique names registered this year, and less than 40 repeats.
The care, creativity and individuality evident in each and every name announcement we read is one of the real joys of running Nameberry, so a huge thank you to all who have shared them with us. And congratulations to all the proud new parents of 2019!
Below, you can find a breakdown of the baby names our members chose in 2019 — and the trends we’re looking out for in 2020.
Berrybaby Girl Names: the stats
The most popular girl names overall in 2019 were Violet (5 uses), Rose (5) and Phoebe (3). No real surprises there: all rank in, or just outside, the current Nameberry Top 50 — although Rose and Phoebe are not in the US Top 100… yet.
The most popular first name for girls was an eight-way tie: Anouk, Juniper, Lucy, Margot, Phoebe, Susannah, Theodora and Violet were all given twice in the first name spot. However, Lucia and Lucille were also used once each, making the “Lucy” family of names particularly well-loved.
Rose and Violet were the most popular middle names for girls, with 5 and 3 uses respectively. In fact, despite being the joint most popular girls’ name overall, Rose was only given in the middle slot. Other middle names used more than once were Clementine, Grace, Joy, Rosemary, Valentine, Wren and Wynn.
Proving that Berrybaby names tend to err on the quirky side, popular classics like Alice, Catherine, Charlotte, Elisabeth and Emma were all among the girls’ names appearing just once in 2019. Some of the year’s most unique picks included meaningful middles like Darling, Ivaloo, Mallardee and Rikaart, and quirky nature names like Peregrine, Waterlily and Zinnia.
The most popular initials for girls’ names were A, C, E, J, L and M, and the least popular were Q (Quinn), U (Ursula), Y (Yael) and X (none — Xanthippe, anyone?)
Berrybaby Boy Names: the stats
The most popular boys’ names overall in 2019 were Arthur (5 uses) and Atticus, Charles, James and Jude (3 uses each). Again, all rank in the current Nameberry Top 50 — although Arthur, Atticus and Jude are still well outside of the US Top 100.
Literary Atticus was the most popular first name for boys, used three times, followed by Arthur, Jasper and Theodore, with two uses each.
The most popular middle names for boys were Arthur and Jude, with three uses each. Evergreen classics Alfred, Charles, Henry, James, Michael and Paul were also used more than once.
Again, there were plenty of popular picks among the boy names used only once by our members in 2019: contemporary classics like Benjamin, Christopher, Daniel, Thomas and William. Some of the most unique choices we spotted included obscure mythological names like Pellinore and Telemachus, as well as novel nature names like Everest, Rigel and Woods.
The most popular initials on the boys’ side were A, C, E, L and M, and the least popular were Q (Quentin) and Z (Zen), as well as I, X and Y (none).
Top Baby Name Trends
Next-Gen Nature Names
In the year of Greta Thunberg and the school climate strikes, it’s only natural that nature-inspired baby names are still one of the biggest baby name trends.
For girls, quirky bird names like Lark and Wren, Sparrow and Peregrine proved popular — and Jessica Simpson named her 2019 daughter the even more obvious Birdie. Fresh fruit and flower names like Clementine, Dahlia, Marigold, Plum, Primrose and Zinnia also joined other bold botanicals, like Meadow and Prairie, on the girls’ list.
Gender-Bending Word Names
Big, bold word names like Wilder and Valor have been popular with the Berries for a few years now… for boys. But those names appeared on the girls’ list this year. And boys named Fox and Wolfe were joined by others with more serene word names, like Love, Pax and Zen.
With 2019 starbaby girls named Beatrice Danger and Atlas, and boys named Winter Mercy and Valentine, we’re keeping a close eye on this trend!
Surprising Surnames
Could the nation’s love affair with two-syllable surname names ending -er or -son finally be coming to an end?
Maybe not just yet, but our members certainly seem to prefer more unconventional options: try Calloway, Wells and Montgomery for boys, or Fallon, Hartland and Rikaart for girls.
“New” Old Names
The trend for vintage baby names is evolving! We’ve spotted plenty of real rarities being revived by our members this year: from clunky-cool, old-school picks like Augusta and Ambrose, Bernadette and Barnabas, to retro revivals that certainly feel ahead-of-the-curve in 2019: Lorraine, Diana, Gerald, Homer, Kenneth, Ross…
Not Your Normal Nicknames
Nicknames as given names are only rarely used by Berries on the birth certificate (examples from this year include Bea, Kit, Lola, Niko, Rue and Tommy), but we’re seeing more and more birth announcements with built-in nicknames, like Kieran Culkin’s new daughter Kinsey Sioux “Zissou”.
Creative combinations we love from this year’s Babyberry crop include Atticus “Kit”, Keturah “Tutu”, Berengaria “Bee”, Hazel “Hazy”, and twins Susannah and Sylvie “Zuzu and Zibby”.
Big, Bold Middles
Rose and Arthur may have been the most popular individual middle names this year, but they were more than eclipsed by the number of daring and downright extravagant middle names given to Babyberries in 2019: Belphoebe, Eowyn, Guinevere, Waterlily, St John, Llewellyn, Fitzwilliam and Pellinore, to name but a few.
With recent starbabies named Max Valentine, Bella Milagro and Slash Electric, celebrity parents are clearly loving this trend too!
Of course, there are still almost two weeks of 2019 left — plenty of time to get your own baby name announcement to us, if you haven’t already. You can share your choice on our Forums, or over on our Instagram page (#berrybabynames). We’d love to hear from you!