Movie Character Names

Would fit right in with the currently popular in/an/en/on-ending boys' names.

Overly ambitious choice, recently borne by the hapless hero of cult movie hit Napoleon Dynamite.

Mattie, which might be a short form of Martha, Matilda, or even Madeline, ranked among the Top 100 names for girls in the 1880s and in fact, has held a place among the Top 1000 for most of U.S. naming history. It fell off the popularity charts in 2014 and makes a cute, tomboyish, if somewhat slight name option.

T'Challa is the "real" name of Marvel's Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman in the 2018 blockbuster. That year, Marvel released a comic revealing the name means "he who put the knife where it belonged" in the fictional native language of Wakanda.

Cross-cultural name with a great nautical meaning. It boomed in the 1930s and has potential for revival now.

It's a futuristic name in Solaris, but it is also related to Rhea, the name of Zeus's mother and wife of Cronus.

Literary heritage: the "Loony Tunes" girlfriend of Porky Pig. But with the increasing popularity of all kinds of unusual botanical names, Petunia may be a name we start to hear more of. Perhaps-more-pleasing Petunia alternatives: Petal, Posy, Poppy.

The name of the young hero of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, who was raised by wolves (really) and becomes a genius hunter and trapper, was chosen as a middle name for their son Bronx (really, again) by rockers Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz. Kipling invented the name, whose first syllable rhymes with cow.

Shortening Francisco somehow makes it sound even cooler. Cisco is also the name of a digital security company.

This Hindi name for the fifth element, related to the male Akash which means "open sky," was used by Anne Rice in her Vampire Chronicles.

Clove is a spice name that is a tad more piquant than Saffron or Cinnamon. It might get more attention now as a member of The Hunger Games family of names.

Forever Lucy's.

An attractive enough name, but for die-hard Star Wars fans only.

Though Isabel is a smash hit, Christabel still hasn't been fully embraced. It was originally popularized in England via the Coleridge poem Christabel ("whom her father loves so well") and was given to the poet's granddaughter. Christabel Pankhurst was a famous U.K. suffragist.

A unique virtue name with a sound as happy and lively as its meaning.

Name of mythological fiend who seduced young men and then ate them, which inspired the Keats poem "Lamia." Described in mythology as a snake with the head and breasts of a woman, this name has been considered in modern times as a vampire name. And if all that isn't discouraging enough, there's the "lame" connection.

Those "Where's Gretel?" jokes will get old pretty fast.

Evanna is the name of a Harry Potter actress who pronounces it ee-vah-na. This might be considered yet another international feminine form of the many variations of John; Ivana, Giovanna, and even Joan are cousins of Evanna.

This name of an area in northern Greece, known in the era of Homer's Odyssey as Aeolus. It's the name of a character in the graphic novel Sandman, and could easily be adopted for a modern little girl.

Cady is one of those names that sounds popular but is actually rare in this form, given to only a few dozen baby girls in the US last year.