Alabama

Love makes an endearing middle name, as in Jennifer Love Hewitt. However, more parents are considering Love as a first name — enough for it to enter the charts for the first time in 2022 as one of the fastest-rising names of the year. Other love-related alternatives include Juliet, Valentina, and Amor.

Echo, the pretty, resonant name of a legendary nymph, was the heroine of Joss Whedon's sci-fi series Dollhouse. Nick Hexum, of the band 311, named his daughter Echo Love.

Waverly, with its literary resonance and lilting three-syllable sound, could well become the next generation's successor to Kimberly. Its upper-crusty surname feel places it among the new stylish English names for girls, successors to Ashley and Whitney.

Unlike its somewhat formal Swiss city namesake, this is a lively and appealing place-name that also has a real history as a female name.

Chosen for their first son by musical couple Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, this Jamaican place and elegant British surname also boasts the more regal yet user-friendly short form, King.

There's definitely a cold front of names for winter babies moving in, with Summer, Spring and Autumn giving way to Winter--plus North, January, Frost--and Snow. This name feels brisk, fresh, pure, evocative -- and magical. A haunting middle name choice.

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.

Oak, a symbol of solidity, strength, and longevity, is joining Cedar and Pine as a viable name, one that would work especially well in the middle.

Cherokee is the name of a Native American tribe, the largest in the United States stretching from North Carolina through Oklahoma. The meaning of the word Cherokee is uncertain: It may be Choctaw for "those who live in the mountains" or "those who live in the cave country" or it may be an Anglicization of the word the Cherokee use to refer to themselves, Tsalagi. The name was given to 19 baby girls in the U.S. in 2013 but was not recorded on the boys' roster, though we'd consider it equally appropriate for either gender.

Similar to popular Riley and Ryan and the origin of Rylan, this Old English surname has been in the US Top 1000 since the early 2000s. While it has declined in recent years, it was still given to around 360 boys in 2024 — and to 30 girls.