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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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 looks back over the 459 names she’s chosen in her weekly Nameberry 9′s this year and picks out her top favorites.

Nine names per week over 51 weeks equals 459 names.  They’re classic, they’re quirky, and sometimes they’re downright strange.  But when I sat down to review a year’s worth of Nameberry posts, I realized that most of them are actually pretty wearable.

Very few of them repeat – something that surprised me, as it so often seems that a name is suddenly everywhere all at once.  Some garnered lots of positive comments while others went completely unnoticed.

My favorite comment?  “No, don’t mention THAT name.  It’s the top of our list!”  As I scrolled through the posts, there were more than a few groans of disappointment.

The best names, though, aren’t necessarily the ones that will be racing up the popularity charts.  I’m most attracted to the ones that seem novel – unlikely to catch on, but probably part of a bigger change in how we think about names.

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In this turned-around pre-holiday week, Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel offers her baby name wish list, as well as her picks of the newsiest Nameberry 9 names.

With the holidays in full swing, I thought it was time for a wish list.

I’d love to magically know how to pronounce every child’s name at first glance.

A crystal ball to find out which noun names will wear well, and which just plain won’t work.  Or, alternately, a detailed explanation as to why Pilot and Apple still seem outrageous while Chase and Genesis are mainstream.

A trip to the most fashionable of playgrounds in Paris and the ability to speak fluent French in order to grill expectant mamans about their favorite baby names.  Cosette probably isn’t one of them … but in Pittsburgh or Pensacola, I think she could be a smash.  Or wait, maybe I’ll visit Toronto, because their list is just different enough from the US to pique my curiosity.

A promise that there will be a bunch of fabulously named starbabies every week … never mind, Santa – we have Claire Danes!

The nine baby names that inspired my wish list are also this week’s nine most newsworthy appellations:

Calin – Television veteran Samaire Armstrong is a new mom.  She welcomed son Calin a few days ago.  But t riddle me this: does Calin sound like Caylen, Colin, or Calvin without the v?

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Abby Sandel of Appellation Mountain focuses this week on some bold and daringly unusual girls’ names that made baby name news.

Some weeks I’m astonished by the range of names we can choose for girls.

We love our children regardless of gender, but when it comes to talking baby names, many of us seem to be on Team Pink.  The statistics bear this out: almost 79% of boys born in the US in 2011 received a Top 1000 name, while the same is true for just 67% of girls.

2012 social media babies Like and Facebook were both girls, and rumored baby Hashtag is also supposed to be a she.  Meanwhile, former #1 name Mary has plummeted to #112, while her male counterpart, John, remains a relatively common #27.

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