Unusual baby names are becoming more and more, well, common these days. A mere one percent of babies are named Emma or Jacob, the most popular names, and only about ten percent are given one of the Top Ten names.  Compare that to a hundred years ago, when FIVE percent of babies were given the most popular names John or Mary, and 30 percent of boys and 20 percent of girls received one of the Top Ten Names.  For the first time, less than half of all babies get one of the Top 50 names.

And it’s not only American parents who are choosing unusual baby names.  Chinese parents, seeking individuality in a country with 1.3 billion people sharing only 129 surnames, are turning to unconventional combinations of letters, numbers and symbols for their children’s names.  One couple wanted to name their baby 1A while others use the @ symbol, pronounced “aita” and meaning “love him” in Chinese.

Many European countries restrict the pool of possible names, though many parents are testing the centuries-old boundaries.  But Belgium, with no such laws, over half of children receive such unique names as Testimony, Cherub, and Edelweiss.

If you’re considering giving your baby an unusual name, your biggest question may be: How will an unusual name affect my child for better and worse throughout his or her life?

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Guest blogger and name lover Eleanor Nickerson, aka nameberry’s own Elea, tells us all about the exotic and gorgeous names from Cornwall, the exotic and gorgeous region in the southwest of England.

The first time I visited Cornwall was at the tender age of one. Sadly, my dad’s abiding memory of that holiday was a grouching baby grizzling all through his long-awaited sailing trip (something he has yet to fully forgive me for to this day). A few years later my parents bravely returned again, one more child in tow, and fortunately much fun and sandcastle-building ensued.

It wasn’t until several years later when I returned to the region as a fifteen year-old that I was truly able to appreciate the breath-taking beauty of the Cornish coast and countryside. In the intervening years since my last visit I had developed an avid, border-line obsessive, passion for names and their meanings. What struck me was that many houses were named instead of numbered, and these place names, along with those adorning road signs, quickly caught my attention both due to the foreign sound to English ears, and the similarity to my greatest name-love: Welsh names.

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Just when it seemed that the stormy seas of extreme celebrity baby names were calming down (you can see our comments on this at Celebrity Babies Blog), a new crop has come along  introducing a whole bunch of innovative choices, ranging from the ridiculous to the semi-sublime:

BARDOT (first name of David Boreanaz’s daughter) Following in the footsteps of Harlow and other  Hollywood sirens and sex kittens of the past(Dad Boreanaz admitted being inspired by a Brigitte Bardot poster), Bardot could easily fit in with the growing group of o-ending girls’ names: Juno, Lilo, Willow, etc.

BETSI (middle name of Ioan Gruffudd & Alice Evans’ daughter Ella).  Much to my surprise, I find this new take on an old name—I’m not usually a big fan of changing y’s to i’s— appealingly fresh, cute and perky.
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Journalist and New York City mom Laura Dunphy reports that the pressure is on for Gotham parents to choose baby names that are more creative, more unusual, cooler than those anyone else is using. But no matter how hard you try, you still might not make it.

Ah, New York, New York.  If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.  And if you can name your baby here without needing therapy or Xanax, then I applaud you.

That’s because like everything else in NYC, baby naming is intense.  If most people think naming children is a pleasant activity, like badminton or a picnic, Manhattanites treat it as a competitive sport, like rugby or bond trading.

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Most of us, as kids, lived in a world colored by crayons, and for those of us fascinated by words and names, those assigned to the different hues in the big 64-crayon Crayola box were particularly evocative.  I can still remember, as a little girl,  being intrigued by such mysterious names as Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber.

These memories were reawakened by a communique from our inspired creative contributor Nephele, when she wrote:

“Perhaps one of the fondest childhood memories shared by many of us is that of opening up a fresh box of crayons.  What a joy to the senses it was to experience that clean scent of wax and the beautiful sight of those colorful rows of pointed tips awaiting one’s creative process.  Adding to the delight was the fact that one’s crayons bore wonderful individual names on their wrappers, such as “Periwinkle” and “Cadet Blue.”  With such names, how could a child not help but personify her crayon friends?

‘Crayola’ was synonymous with ‘crayon’  in my childhood days, as it pretty much is today.  The bonus for today’s children is that the Crayola company now includes, along with English, both French and Spanish language versions of their crayon names on the wrappers of each crayon–providing even more name choices for one’s crayon companions!”

Here is Nephele’s list of crayon names which might also make pleasing names, with a few additions by Nameberry:

ALMENDRA (Spanish, “Almond“)

CERISE

CERULEAN

FERN

FUCHSIA (more…)