This week for her Nameberry 9, Appellation Mountain‘Abby Sandel seeks out and finds creative baby names that are on the safe side of unusual.

We endlessly dissect outlandish names.  There are the wacky celebrity choices that make headlines in the mainstream press, and the footnotes at the end of articles announcing Mason and Emma the most popular names in Montana, but a handful of babies named Banana or Marvelous.  Heck, we’re still talking about Blue Ivy, and probably will be until she heads off to middle school.

And yet much of the time parents still gravitate towards the more popular choices.  How many times have you heard: “We wanted something unusual, but we just kept coming back to Ava.”  It takes an awful lot of daring to choose a name that is completely out of the mainstream.

This week’s list is packed with possibilities that are just a little bit different – not shocking departures from the mainstream, but neither are they currently in the US Top 100 – or even the top 1000.

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