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Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel targets a wide range of names for this week’s Nameberry 9, from the outrageous (if fictitious) Conquistador to the sweet floral Violet.

 It was a week for outrageous baby names. 

Steve Martin joked that his new baby girl is named Conquistador.

Then Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof welcomed a baby boy named Phaedra, a little brother for Astala.  The only one in the family with a buttoned-down name is Peaches’ rocker husband, Thomas Cohen. 

For better and for worse, there will always be outlandish stand-out baby names, the headline-grabbing, eye-popping choices like Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.

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If you don’t have a beloved Gran of your own to name your baby after, how about looking for some outside inspiration from a pop culture Nana?  Here’s a list of TV grandmothers, from the maternal to the monstrous (looking at you, Livia Soprano), the chic to the crotchety, whose names were seen as elderly at the time of their shows’ creation—from the 1950′s to the present—but which have become totally baby friendly today.

Here, the Nameberry picks of the 20 best Grandma TV baby names:

Adele   True Blood

Thanks in large part to the single-named British singer, Adele popped into the Top 1000 last year at Number 627 and we expect to see it ranking considerably higher on the new list to be released next month.  Molly Ringwald used it for her daughter in 2009.

Bea  That ‘70s Show; Bee  The Andy Griffith Show

Bea and Bee have come a long way from Opie’s Aunt Bee (who was actually a surrogate Grandma, but let’s not get technical), because of the newfound popularity of Beatrice and Beatrix. 

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Usually, when baby names are related, the resemblance is pretty obvious.  For example, Christopher’s foreign versions include Christophe and Christos and his short form is Chris; Patricia is otherwise known as Patrizia or Patrice, Pat or Patty.

But this isn’t always the case.  Alexander might be Alistair to his Scottish cousins, Sasha to his friends.

This can come in handy if you’re looking for an invisible (to non-nerds) or at least indirect route to honoring a namesake.  Ways you can do this include finding an interesting but accessible international variation, or an unexpected nickname that can be used on its own, or a mythological, biblical, or other name switch, or dual identity.

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Happy Valentine’s Day, dear Berries!

And beyond celebrating Valentine’s Day baby names, let’s get expansive and salute the whole wide-ranging rise of its initial letter, ‘V.’

If consonants can be said to have personalities, then it wasn’t so long ago that the letter V was seen as more venerable—even fusty– than vivacious. Velma, Vera and Verna; Vernon, Victor and Vincent, all made our original ‘So Far Out They’ll Always Be Out’ list.  But as Pam and I have learned all too well since then—never say the words never or always.

The changes have been gradual since we wrote that, but there were two celebrity events that had a significant effect on V-baby names:  the naming of Violet Affleck in 2005, and then of one of the Jolie-Pitt twins Vivienne three years later.  Now there are a myriad of V-starting names popping both in and out of the celebrisphere.

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