It’s an all girl baby names issue of Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel’s Nameberry 9 newsiest names this week.

Did you hear?  Barack Obama declined to offer baby name advice.

The president hosted a fireside chat on Google+ last week.  He tackled complex, divisive topics like the environment and the economy.

But baby names?

When writer and vlogger John Green introduced his wife, Sarah, and asked Obama if he’d help them choose a name for their second child, the president passed.

Had Green asked that question on the Nameberry forums, we would have all dived in fearlessly.  What’s your firstborn’s name?  Do you have any middles picked out?

Giving baby name advice is tough.  It means sorting names into the good and the bad, or maybe the good and the less good.  Explaining why we like a name is nearly impossible sometimes, isn’t it?  Explaining what we dislike can be too easy.

This week’s news was filled with gorgeous girls’ names representing every possible style and trend, from imports to underused classics to modern discoveries.

The nine most newsworthy baby names are:

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There’s a new generation of mom names, not the midcentury Kathys and Sues that are fast becoming grandma names, but the names of young moms today, born for the most part in the 70s and 80s, their names acquiring a more grownup image as they’ve grown up themselves.

This blog was inspired by the discussion of mom names over on the forums.  On that board, berries are discussing their own moms’ names plus the names of moms they know who have young children.

Of course, not every name of a twenty-or-thirty-something mother qualifies as a mom name.  What does?

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It’s easy to confuse popularity with stylishness.  Many baby names feel “popular” when they’re merely stylish: We’re hearing them a lot, they’re in step with the baby name fashions, and we worry that if we choose them, our little Matilda is going to be one of many.

And perhaps if you live in some edgy, baby-centric enclave – Park Slope, Brooklyn, say, or Bernal Heights in San Francisco – that will be true.  But for the most part, the numbers tell a different story, with many of the most stylish names used by very few parents.

One note: Names can be popular and stylish, so many of those in the popular column also qualify as stylish.

Looking just at girls’ names today, here’s a statistics-based reality check on what’s stylish vs. what’s truly popular.  (Numbers in parentheses represent how many babies were given that name in the most recent U.S. count.)

Allegra (114) is stylish, though Arianna (4,797) is popular

Aurelia (209) is stylish, but Amelia (5,417) is popular

Azalea (164) is stylish while Violet (2,531) is popular

Beatrix (123) is stylish while Alexa (5,012) is popular

Blake (240) is stylish, while Payton (3,561) is popular

Carter (158) is stylish while Kennedy (2,803) is popular

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We’re turning around the Question of the Week format, so that you ask the questions of us and of the general Berry population.

Looking for advice on naming your baby?  Negotiating a name problem with your partner or mother-in-law? Or simply have a larger name question you’d like to ask the crowd?  Send your question to pam@nameberry.com and maybe we’ll choose it for this column.

Our first-ever Berry Question of the Week comes from Lindy Diamond, a South African mother of two adorable little girls (that’s them in the photo) who’s expecting her third daughter and needs help in finding a name that fits her tight parameters.  Lindy writes:

“I have two daughters, with another one on the way in two months time – making me one week overdue for a three under three award! My first daughter is Ariella Jaime Diamond – we call her Ari for short. The second is Aerin Michaela Diamond, just Aerin at the moment.

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