Updated October 2024
Across 5 pages
of 5
English
"camp on the meadow"
Chelsea with dyslexia.
Short form of Cecilia or Celia
"blind or heavenly"
With the growing popularity of Celia and Cecilia, this vintage canasta-playing nickname name could be due for a comeback. Ceil had a few years of recorded popularity in the first decade of the…
"ridge where charcoal is burnt"
Name of a poet, this will be one for consideration by literary parents. The name fits well with the current trend towards surnames as given names, but beware the three syllable pronunciation, which…
English occupational name
"wool carder"
Unusual, serious, no-nonsense occupational surname that could be borrowed from the boys.
English word name
"cotton cloth imported from India; a blotched or spotted animal"
A word name with fashionable o -ending that has associations with both the homespun fabric and the mottled cat. Alice Cooper named his daughter Calico decades ago, while it was selected more recently…
English surname
"crane"
This elegant surname has great potential to turn into an unusual first name, especially with its literary associations to both Stephen and Hart Crane. Crane is a surname that originated for a tall…
"the crane town"
A surname associated these days with Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston.
English variation of Columba
"dove"
In the currently popular solid, serious, two-syllable mold.
English occupational surname
"person who dressed leather after it was tanned"
Has a fresh occupational name feel, combined with old-fashioned Currier & Ives charm.
"famous, brilliant"
Years ago we might have said that this name was unthinkable, but with clunky, old-fashioned names being so popular right now — consider Augustus, Stanley, Wilfred, etc — what's to stop Cuthbert from…
"rocky water"
One art name that sounds distinctly more masculine. Unless you're a big mobile fan, keep thinking.
"female goat"
Cheever has a nice, cheery sound, literary ties to novelist and short writer John Cheever and also, sideways, to the Edward Arlington Robinson narrative poem "Miniver Cheevy," as well as a subliminal…
Literary surname
Crusoe, as in castaway hero Robinson, is a literary invention by author Daniel Defoe. In the novel, the character says his name is an Anglicization of the German Kreutznaer, which may be a place name…