Out-of-the-box word  baby names are highlighted in the Nameberry 9 this week, unearthed as always, by Abby Sandel of Appellation Mountain.

It’s been another big week for noun names.  They were all over Hollywood gossip blogs, and appeared in plenty of workaday birth announcements, too.

There’s no doubt that this is a rich category.  Flower names make us consider trees – meet my daughter, Lily, and my son, Cedar.  Weather and birds feel like inexhaustible sources of inspiration.  There are the old school, Puritan-era virtue names, but also more recent innovations, rich with meaning.

Sometimes the influence is more subtle.  Surname Brooks is preppier than River, but both bring to mind the great outdoors.  Clementine and Olive have been used for so long we consider them names, but they’re both on the upswing today, lifted by the trend.

May, June, and August are mainstream, but I’m not so sure about January, and it is always surprising to hear September, October, or November.  April is definitely a noun name, but Avril is cooler.  And if Avril is an option, how about Janvier?

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Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel looks at some of the new baby names to make the headlines this week–with several surprises.

Being a name nerd used to be hard work.

Do you remember paging through lists of Olympic medalists in the paper, gazing at name plaques in art museums, seeking out family trees in history books at the library?  Did you know exactly which days the local paper ran birth announcements?

Then you must be a thirty-something or better name nerd.

I borrowed my mother’s only baby name book and kept it on my bookshelf, between Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew.  I read it obsessively, even the small print listing nicknames and foreign variants.  That long lost book is where I fell in love with Libby and Nan, Katrinka and Alexei.

So many stories about twenty-first century baby naming trends are dismissive.  They claim parents are trying too hard for their children to stand out and be unique.

Maybe that happens some of the time, but to me it seems straightforward.

With access to all of these fabulous names, why wouldn’t we consider a wider range of possibilities?

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Today, Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel, finds some 2013 baby name predictions embedded in this week’s Nameberry 9 newsiest names.

As 2012 faded into 2013, the world welcomed many a new little life.  Re-reading birth announcements, I was struck by something.

None of them received outlandish names, but every one of them seemed nicely creative.

Some are memorable and meaningful choices, while others are mainstream firsts paired with unexpected middles.

Does it speak to an age where we won’t dismiss names as weird?  Have we stopped worrying that our children can’t be district attorneys or heart surgeons if we name them something other than Katherine or James?  Are filler middles really gone for good?

It all adds up to a great year ahead for baby names – whether you’re naming a child or just spending lots of time thinking about what we might name a child.  And that’s before we consider the latest addition to the Kardashian family …

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