There’s something undeniably cool and, well, jazzy, about the names of jazz musicians. Take the ultimate example, the personification of cool —Miles Davis— who imparted a silky, seductive veneer to his name, as Quincy Jones did to his.
The inimitable Ella Fitzgerald gave hers a jazzy edge long before Ella was anywhere near the pop lists. Names like Ray and Roy, Cecil and Percy and Dexter all take on an appealing funkiness and rise to another level when looked at in the context of jazz.
And then there are the great unique appellations—Bix, Django, Eubie, Mercer—that could appeal to the intrepid jazz aficionado baby namer.
Jazz immortals’ surnames are another possiblity,as chosen by a few celebs—model Helena Christensen called her son Mingus, and Woody Allen used Bechet, the name of one of his musical heroes, Sidney Bechet.
Here, some of the jazziest choices:
GIRLS
BLOSSOM Dearie
CARMEN McRae
DAKOTA Staton
DOROTHY Donegan
LOREZ Alexandria
MORGANAKing
BOYS
ARCHIE Shepp
BARNEY Kessel
CHRISTIAN McBRIDE
CLAUDE Thornhill
COLEMAN Hawkins
COLERIDGE Goode
ELLIS Larkins
GILDO Mahones
GUS Mancuso
ILLINOIS (Jean Baptiste) Jacquet
JULIAN (Cannonball) Adderley
KAI Winding
LARS Gullin
MAX Roach
McCOY Tyner
MONGO Santamaria
CONTE (born Secondo) Candoli
STEPHANE Grapelli
TADD Dameron
THELONIOUS Monk
VIDO Musso
Linda Rosenkrantz
Linda Rosenkrantz is the co-founder of Nameberry, and co-author with Pamela Redmond of the ten baby naming books acknowledged to have revolutionized American baby naming. You can follow her personally at Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed New York Review Books Classics novel Talk and a number of other books.
