Nature, Place and Word Names
By Sophie Kihm · Updated September 2026
Across 4 pages
of 4
Place-name
"home on a forested dune"
With Brooklyn, Trenton, and Camden on the rise, Harlem is one to watch out for. It has lingered down the lower end of the US Top 1000 since 2018 but has been trending upwards. It's already been…
English
"valley of the eagle; high"
Arden, the name of the magical forest in Shakespeare's As You Like It , is a stylish A name with a strong, straightforward image. Another reason to love Arden: its similarity to "ardent." Arden is…
German, English
"high guardian; brave heart"
Howard, once hugely popular in the Top 50 from the 1870s to early 1950s, hitting Number 24 in 1920 -- has been stuck in Dad-Grandad limbo for decades, but is showing some signs of stirring back to…
Place name
Rockers Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz put a new baby name on the map when they chose this downscale New York borough name for their son. The Bronx, the place, was named for early Dutch settler Jonas…
Greek
"sacred name"
Jerome has a bespectacled, serious, studious image, just like its namesake saint, who was a brilliant scholar. St. Jerome is the patron saint of students, librarians, and archaeologists. Musical…
Variation of Lennox, Scottish
"elm grove"
Lennox is one of the hottest unisex names of recent years, and this spelling retains the appealing surname vibe and cool -x ending. This form does distance the name slightly from the literary and…
"shield-wolf"
Medieval name without much of a future.
botanical name
Attractive entry into the tree name genre, joining Ash, Oak, and Juniper. Over 110 baby boys were named Cypress in the US last year, along with 70 baby girls.
"row of houses by a wood"
Aside from President Wilson (born Thomas), most Woodrows, including Herman, Guthrie, and Harrelson, have chosen to be known as Woody, which says it all.
"hilltop town"
Like many names that have strong political connotations, the attractiveness of the name Clinton will be affected by your world-view. But, taking politics out of the equation, Clinton has a lovely…
English variation of Maurice
"dark-skinned"
Morris is as quiet and comfortable as a Morris chair, and has the same vintage feel. Once a Top 100 name in the early 1900s, Morris fell completely off the roster in 1995, probably due to lingering…
Place name, Latin from Welsh
"Wales"
Most names that start with Cam- are on the upswing, so why not this obscure term for Wales as well as for a prehistoric time period.
Word name, English from Greek
"diamond"
Diamond sparkled all through the nineties--reaching as high as Number 150 in 1999. Although its shine has diminished quite a bit, it remains in use. Followers of the British royal family may know…
"fields of the village"
One of the surname names used more in the last century, à la Milton and Morton.
Long more associated with the New York Waldorf- hotel and the neighborhood in Queens than as a baby name, Astoria is finally beginning to emerge from their shadow and find favor with parents looking…
Word name
"queen"
Queen has seen a revival in recent times, reaching its record high in 2018 with 280 births — it has remained steady since then. Previously, Queen saw a peak in the 1920s, but its origins go back even…
English tree name
"tree of the genus Tilla"
Though this name of a sturdy tree that can live for centuries was quite popular for boys in the first half of the twentieth century, at this point in time we can see Linden as a fresh-sounding…
"relating or belonging to The Netherlands"
If Holland works for a girl, why not Dutch for a boy? Well, one reason is that Holland is a place name and Dutch is used to describe someone or something from The Netherlands, but we digress. Dutch…
English place-name
Out-of-the-way place name (it's an antiquated holiday spot on England's south coast) that might make a brilliant choice. Actor/director Jon Favreau named his daughter Brighton Rose.
Scottish
"settlement by the sea"
Murray, you may be surprised to discover, is a Scottish surname name --that of an ancient noble clan--with a sea-swept meaning, and just could be in the next wave of reevaluated grandpa names.…
