Nature, Place and Word Names
New York Baby Names
Across 5 pages
of 5
Lenox
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…
Lexington
English place name
Lexington is rising as a place name used just about evenly for the genders. For Americans, it's got a patriotic ring, given the importance of Lexington, Massachusetts in the Revolutionary War.…
Liberty
Word name
Less common than other virtue names, Liberty is nonetheless a name with a long American heritage. Liberty is seeing a level of popularity not seen since the end of the First World War, but its heyday…
Bryant
Variation of Brian, Irish
"strong, virtuous, and honorable"
Bryant has a longer history as a first name in the US than its father name Brian, ranking among the Top 1000 since the list began in 1880 while Brian only jumped on in 1925. That may be because the…
Bronx
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…
Brighton
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.
Mattias
Scandinavian, spelling variation of Matthias
"gift of God"
This particular spelling was chosen by Will Ferrell for his son, brother to Magnus. These names are both popular in Sweden, birthplace of their mother, Viveca Paulin.
Mercer
French occupational surname
"a merchant"
Mercer is one fashionable occupational name that can work as well for girls as boys, perhaps because of the soft c or the conventionally feminine nickname Mercy.
Minetta
Diminutive of Minna or Wilhelmina, German
"child of the red earth"
Minetta is one of those names that's a diminutive of a diminutive -- Minna, a pan-European nickname that can be short for many names beginning or ending in Mina. Minetta may be most famous as Minetta…
Murray
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.…
Bethesda
Hebrew
"house of mercy"
Unlike other place names, this one might be tied too tightly to a single locale -- the Maryland suburb of D. C. -- to work as a first name.
Nolita
Latin
"unwilling"
A saucy Latin name that also defines a trendy New York area north of Little Italy.
Bergen
Germanic, Scandinavian
"lives on a hill; mountain"
Norwegian city name, Bergen is a strong, rugged choice, that may feel stylish in that surname-or-city-inspired way of Brogan and Brooklyn, London and Bristol, Bexley and Reagan. Used originally to…
Park
Word name
A grassy place with trees is a nice image to attach to a name.
Bellerose
French and English
"beautiful rose"
A felicitous combo of two sweet names; also a Queens, New York neighborhood.
Poe
English
"peacock"
An evocative unisex one-syllable name, Poe is most distinguished by its literary reference. Edgar Allan Poe was an influential American author and poet, credited with inventing the genres of…
Queen
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…
Ramone
Musical name
Ramon is a common Latin male name, but Ramone would clearly be in tribute to the early punk rock group--each of whose members took on the last name Ramone.
Rockwell
English
"rock spring"
This would be an intriguing choice for an illustrator's child, thanks to Norman Rockwell and Rockwell Kent. But most babies called Rockwell today are named after Porter Rockwell, a companion of…
Roosevelt
Dutch
"rose field"
Presidential surname adopted as a first by numbers of midcentury African-American parents.