Place Names for Babies

Mesa is both the term for a flat-topped mountain, derived from the Spanish word for "table", and the Thai variation of April.

Montego Bay is a beach resort in Jamaica.

This name of an architecturally glorious Italian city makes a romantic and evocative possibility.

Strong and spare state name, maybe better in the middle -- or for a boy.

Visitors to Hawaii's Garden Isle may want to commemorate the island's beauty with this place-name.

Cimarron is a Great Plains city and river name used by Edna Ferber as the title of a popular novel. The Cimarron people of Panama were previously enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together in defiance of colonial rule. In the 1570s, they allied with Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest.

A name with something for everyone: for romantics, it's a beautiful Indonesian island; for teckies, it's a computer programming language.

A town in Catalonia, sometimes used as a unisex name.

An unexplored choice, evocative of the snowcapped Andes, with a pleasant, catchy sound.

In the Bible, there is a reference to the Kerith Ravine, where God told Elijah to hide in order to be provided with water during a drought. There is also a Kerith in the James Michener novel The Source. A soft and gentle and very unusual addition to the category of biblical place names.

According to legend -- and, crucially, the Wonder Woman comics and movies -- Themyscira is the home of the Amazons, a mythical race of powerful female warriors. As depicted in the DC comics, Themyscira is a lush utopian island in the middle of a vast ocean. It was also the name of a real town in the Ancient Greek world, on the southern coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey.

A Puritanical virtue name and also a place name, belonging to the state capital of Rhode Island and several other towns and cities in the US.

Lydda is the name of a Biblical town whose similarity to Lydia makes it plausible as a first name. But if you're considering Lydda, we can't help but wonder: Why not just stick with Lydia?

This beautiful New Mexican pueblo locale has long attracted artists and skiers, and now may attract some baby namers as well.

Columbia is a rarely used name with many associations. From the eighteenth century it has been used as a female personification of the United States, often appearing as a flag-draped patriotic figure. And as such it's inspired a plethora of place and company names, from the District of Columbia to Columbia University to Columbia Records, and songs like "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." A character called Columbia appears in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Viva Las Vegas? What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? We think not. Maybe Vega, the name of an actual heavenly star?

A fun, unexpected way to honor your home state or a Mary in your life. As geographical girl names such as Ireland, Scotland, and Oakland slowly rise up the charts, Maryland could be a future favorite.

An unusual place, Lausanne is a hilly city on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Its name comes from the Latin Lausanna, ultimately from a Proto Celtic word meaning "slab" though other sources suggest it could mean "place where one dines".

This geographical name with Iroquois roots has a lot going for it: a strong sound, a vigorous o ending, and -- a quality prized today -- rarity.