Nature, Place and Word Names
Rare Place Names for Babies
Across 7 pages
of 7
Dover
British place-name
Two-syllable place-names are stylish, and this one is attached to a British city noted for its white chalk cliffs, but there are a couple of minuses: associated with the fish, Dover sole, and also…
Dublin
Irish place-name
With Galway and Ireland in play as names (not to mention Shannon and Kerry), there's no reason this one can't work, too.
Elba
Place-name
The site of Napoleon's exile became the great-great-aunt in the purple hat.
England
English place name
"land of the Angles"
Most parents would prefer London for their daughters.
Ethiopia
English from Greek
"Burnt-face, red-brown"
The place name Ethiopia was derived from the Greek word for an Ethiopian, Aithiops , from the components aithō , "I burn" and ōps "face." As a noun, it takes on the meaning of "Burnt-face," which the…
Alamo
Place-name, Spanish
"poplar tree"
The unique O-ending makes this name memorable, especially for someone with ties to Texas.
Fiji
English
"place name"
One of several fascinating names used in Charlaine Harris's Midnight, Texas books and the NBC adaptation thereof, Fiji is a pleasingly quirky place name that's been little used for babies. Though it…
Galway
Place-name
Associated with the poet and novelist Galway Kinnell, this name of an Irish city, county, and bay would make an evocative choice. For further literary cred, writers Liam O'Flaherty and Frank Harris…
Genoa
Italian place-name
One of the newer geographical site names, it has the advantage of sounding like a real girl's name because of its jen beginning and feminine a ending.
Glasgow
Scottish place-name
An undiscovered place-name with an appealing o-sound ending.
Guernsey
Place-name
The name of an island in the English Channel that might make an attractive first name, but would work better for a boy.
Havana
Place-name
The vowel ending tilts this sharply toward the feminine, and at this point Havana still has some political implications as well.
Iberia
Place name
Iberia, the name of the Spanish-Portuguese peninsula, makes an attractive, unusual first name.
Indio
Spanish
"Indian"
This name of a California desert town, used by Deborah Falconer and Robert Downey, Jr. for their son, makes a much livelier and more individual – not to mention more masculine – improvisation on the…
Ireland
Place name
Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin put Ireland on the map when they chose it as a first for their daughter, saying that geographic names were a family tradition. And it seems they were a bit ahead of the…
Italia
Italian place-name
Authentic, melodic place-name for the adventurous, chosen by rapper LL Cool J for his daughter and by TV personality Jessica Graf Nickson for her daughter in 2025. Given to around 80 baby girls in…
Jakarta
Place name
Jakarta, the name of the capital and largest city of Indonesia, is located on the island of Java. Both Jakarta and Java could make interesting and unusual choices for a girl.
Java
Anglicization of Indonesian Jawa; place name
A name with something for everyone: for romantics, it's a beautiful Indonesian island; for teckies, it's a computer programming language.
Jersey
English place name, Old Norse
"Geirr's island"
An established place name, associated with a sunny island in the English Channel, the Garden State in the US, knitted pullovers, reality TV, and a Broadway musical. It peaked in the late 2000s and…
Alabama
Place-name; Choctaw
"vegetation gatherers"
Alabama is a hot southern place-name, picking up from Georgia and Savannah. This is not a geographical name come lately, though--there have been girls named Alabama dating back well over a century.…