Middle Names

Annette is a French diminutive of Ann which was among the first wave of widely-used girls' names from France, now neglected for so long that it's almost starting to feel stylish again.

This feminine form of Arliss, is familiar via the recent HBO series. But why not just use Arliss?

In all its iterations, this name is on the rise. Ariana and Arianna are both highly popular choices in the US, and as with other popular appellations, creative spellings are inevitable. The trendy y in place of the i might be tempting, but anyone bearing this spelling will constantly be correcting people who assume one of the two dominant versions.

A classic in its native Scandinavia, Axel has a cool rock 'n' roll flavor in the US, thanks to Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose (born William). Axel is a popular Scandinavian form of the Biblical Absalom, who was a son of King David, and is the name of the title character of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom.

Fairy-tale memories of Sleeping Beauty inspire some parents—such as Rachel Bilson and Hayden Christensen—to call their daughters Briar Rose. But Briar plus a different middle name might work even better. It's one of the newly popular nature-word names, charting in the US for the first time in 2015 for both genders.

Strong, ultramasculine, and modern, Cade shot up the popularity lists around the millennium—it was as high as Number 201 in 2001—along with cousins Caden and Cale, and has drifted along in the middle of the US Top 1000 ever since.

Word name with an appealing sound but a trivializing meaning.

Common name in Wales that's all but unknown in the U.S. Certainly an attractive choice ripe for export. In the UK it sits at Number 330.

Chase, with its sleek and ultraprosperous aura, is redolent of the worlds of high finance and international banking. Chase has been well used during the last few decades, seen as a character on 24 and on several young-audience shows.

A Gallic twist on a word or nature name, which has a nice lemony feel. 

Names that sound and/or are spelled like Dalila exist in several languages, from the Swahili Dalili to the Arabic Dalil to the Hebrew Delilah. A beautiful cross-cultural choice.

If Erykah Badu can name her son Seven, why can't you name your daughter (or son) this? Eleven has recently gotten a lot of attention via the character on the TV show Stranger Things.

The Hebrew Eliana has been rising quickly in recent years, as have a collection of other "El-" names such as Eleanor, Eliza, Ella, Eloise, and Elena. The Elliana spelling has been following suit, possibly attracting parents with its more direct route to the ultra-popular nickname Ellie through the double Ls. Elliana entered the charts in 2005, and is now in the Top 200.

A simple and seamlessly international choice with a joyful sound and beautiful meaning.

The second most popular spelling of this name is also the most straightforward.

You might think of Harper as the hottest name of the last decade, jumping from obscurity to the Top 10, where it remained until last year.

Looking for a Texas name more distinctive than Austin and Dallas? Houston is a lanky, roguish place-name, right in style with its Texas accent and cowboy image.