Some baby names sound so intelligent, so serious, so destined for success that we can just see them on the Harvard acceptance letter. These are conservative cool baby names — popular among suburban yuppies and private school parents. These parents give their children smart baby names such as Helen and Holden that carry with them presumptions of intellect and work ethic.
 
Along with Helen and Holden, other baby names headed for Harvard in the US Top 500 include Arthur, Barrett, Colette, Dante, Esther, Fernanda, Solomon, and Willa. Many smart-sounding baby names are connected to intellectuals or noted thinkers of history, such as Alcott, Langston, Isaac, and Marie.
 
You could always name your child Harvard, or choose a name inspired by another upper-echelon institution, such as Yale, Carleton, or Reed. Not all <a href="https://nameberry.com/list/457/College-Baby-Names">college names</a> qualify — one rising name you won't see on this list is Princeton, which is too trendy to fall into the conservative cool category. Besides, he's hopefully headed for, well, Princeton.
 
If you're looking for a studious and intelligent name for your child, browse our list of baby names headed for Harvard, here.

Baby Names Headed for Harvard

Honor is a somewhat more straight-laced virtue name than Hope or Grace, placing a high standard on any girl carrying it, but it's a goal worth setting. By choosing Honor for her daughter, Jessica Alba brought it very much into the modern world. 
 
Honor has become popular as a nonbinary name, given to nearly equal numbers of girls and boys but not ranking in the Top 1000 for either.
 
Probably the best known bearer is British actress Honor Blackman, remembered for her roles in The Avengers and the James Bond Goldfinger.
 The more feminine Honora is also pretty and a fresh route to Nora. In another variation, Honoria Blake is a character in the Dickens novel Bleak House, Honoria Brady is the hero's cousin in the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by W. M. Thackeray and Honoria Glossop, a character in the Jeeves stories by P. G. Wodehouse.

Honor

Brisk, preppy York is an underused classic with the potential to really shine in the 21st century. It's most familiar as a place name — York is a city in England — and surname. New York City and State were named after the Duke of York.
 
The most notable York in history was an enslaved man who was the only Black member of Lewis and Clark's expedition. York was a key member of the journey, skilled in hunting, medicine, and other survival skills. He was also invaluable in Native American diplomacy. At the end of the expedition, Clark denied York's freedom and instead sold him black into slavery.
 
Despite the sad ending to York's story, he is an American hero with a name worthy of consideration.

York

The luminous Ingrid Bergman's appeal was strong enough to lend universal charisma to this classic Scandinavian name, which has been somewhat neglected in the US. Even today, a child named Ingrid would be assumed to be of Scandinavian ancestry, signaling the name has never been fully integrated into the English lexicon the way other European choices from the same era like Danielle or Kathleen have.
 Still popular in its native Scandinavia, where it is a royal name, its highest US ranking was Number 380 in 1967. 
 Its meaning refers to Ing, the Norse god of fertility, peace, and prosperity, and he's looked upon as the ancestor of the Swedish kings.
 Ingrid was the name of mother figures in both Spy Kids and White Oleander.
 Trivia tidbit: It's Scarlett Johansson's middle name.

Ingrid

Waspy surname-name most closely associated with visionary magazine editor (Edward) Graydon Carter, who created Spy and Air Mail and was the longime editor of Vanity Fair. More substantial than Gray, more distinctive than Grayson.

Graydon

Originally a Dutch surname, imported by the early Dutch colonists, has been all but overpowered by the phonetic spellings in the US -- Skyler for boys and Skylar for girls. With the surnames-as-first-names trend, however, and the popularity of the Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton, which features the Schuyler sisters, perhaps Schuyler might receive some more interest in the coming years.

Schuyler

baby names headed for harvard

intellectual, intelligent, smart, scholarly baby names, including intelligent girl names and intellectual boy names, with meanings, origins, and popularity. (Page 7)