This week, Nameberry Style columnist Elisabeth Wilborn, of You Can’t Call It It and The Itsy Factor, waves her magic wand over the girls’ top 100 list and transforms overly-popular names with chic new alternatives.

The list of top girls’ names is brimming with gorgeousness. After all, the top girls’ names got that way because people love them.

But if you seek a more rare, chic alternative for your little one, play this game with me. Ask yourself, is it the sound that makes you fall in love with a name? Is it the fact that it honors your heritage? Perhaps it’s the meaning? Whatever the names’ deepest appeal, there may be another, less popular option that will satisfy you.

I had fun with this list, maybe even more so than with the boys’ names because there are just so many viable options to choose from.

How would you amp up the style of the girls’ names from the top of the chart, and are there any that you’re too in love with to change?

1) Isabella–>Mirabella
2) Sophia–>Louisa
3) Emma–>Alice
4) Olivia–>Ottilie
5) Ava–>Rita
6) Emily–>Cecily
7) Abigail–>Tabitha

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Question of the Week: What were your responses to the new Social Security list of Popular Names 2010?

Last week we asked for your predictions of the popular names 2010, and some of you came up with very spot-on forecasts—a special shout-out to names4real for anticipating the rise of Bentley (who is shown at right).

• Now that the dust has settled, wdyt overall?

• Biggest surprise(s)?

• Was it disappointing that there was so little movement in the top echelons?

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Once upon a time—let’s say pre-Roseanne—the TV mom was the paragon of domestic motherhood, as exemplified and epitomized by the Beaver’s understanding mom, June Cleaver, who famously did her vacuuming in high heels and pearls and pencil-slim skirts on Leave It to Beaver. This idealized image persisted via later near-perfect parents like The Cosby Show’s Claire Huxtable, who was able to effortlessly combine high-powered career with being the wisest and most compassionate of moms, never losing her cool.

Of course there were blips over the years, such as vibrantly vulgar characters like Roseanne Conner and Married with Children’s Peg Bundy and later cranky (older) moms like Marie Barone and Estelle Costanza, but for the most part television moms set a pretty high—if not unattainable—bar.

So here’s our Mother’s Day salute to those Margarets and Marions, Harriets and Helens of TV Momdom past– and their perfect period names.

ABBY Bradford—Eight is Enough

ALICE Mitchell–Dennis the Menace

AMY Matthews—Boy Meets World

ANGELA Bowers–Who’s the Boss?

ANN Romano, One Day at a Time

BARBARA Russo–Blossom

CAROL Brady—The Brady Bunch; CAROL Walsh—Beverly Hills 90210

CAROLINE Ingalls—Little House on the Prairie

CLAIR Huxtable—The Cosby Show

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Today’s Questions of the Week focus on the upcoming Social Security lists of 2010′s most popular names.

The announcements of the Social Security Administration’s popularity lists for 2010 are almost upon us.  So, time to place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, on what will be revealed.

What do you think will be the three top names for girls and boys?  Will Isabella and Jacob be overthrown?

Which names will make the biggest leaps—one girl, one boy?

Which name/names will drop out of the Top 10?

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On the boys’ side of nameberry’s Most Popular Names 2010, Henry edged out Finn to hang onto the Number 1 place that it’s held for most of the year. If you count related names such as Finnian and Finnegan, however, the Finn family would be Number 1.

Oliver, the Number 1 boys’ name in England but only Number 98 on the U.S. list, is in third place on the nameberry count and Jasper and Milo are the fastest risers in the boys’ Top 10.

Nameberry’s Most Popular Names 2010 list counts the number of times visitors to our site searched each name throughout the year, which we like to think gives the discerning baby namer an excellent insight into which names are attracting the most buzz. Our individual name pages received 4.5 million views in 2010, with top name Henry garnering nearly 10,000 searches.  About two-thirds of our visitors are from the U.S., with another 20 percent from Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

None of our boys’ Top 10 are on the national Top 10. The fashionable classic James is Number 11 on our list but only 18 on the U.S. popularity list.

The fastest rising boys’ names are marked with an asterisk and include Sebastian, Sawyer, Declan, Silas, and Beckett.

Look here for our 2010 most popular names for girls.

Here are the Top 100 nameberry most popular names 2010 for boys:

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