"Girly" Names for Boys

Haven is a recently invented safe-harbor name that appeals to an increasing number of parents who don't want to voyage quite as far as Heaven.

While Skylar is currently the most popular spelling choice for girls, the Skyler option is more (statistically) unisex. Given to boy and girls in nearly equal numbers each year, it ranks around the middle of the US Top 1000.

A lean and lanky Irish cowboy name with great nickname potential to boot (Cass or Sid are both options). This is one of the great under-rated American names!

Irish place-name -- it's a river, a town, and an airport -- once popular but now supplanted by such newer immigrants as Saoirse and Seanan.

A name that feels both spiritual and trendy, Trinity surged up the charts in the early 2000s, following the release of The Matrix. In just two years, it made an impressive jump from the latter end of the charts to the US Top 100, where it remained for more than a decade.

Jessie has never been used as much as Jennie/Jenny, partly because it's a boys’ name as well (spelled Jesse), but it does have a friendly and unpretentious pioneer feel. In Scotland, it's found as an Anglicized form of Teasagh, itself a form of Jean, and is used as a full name. And in the rest of the world, Jessie may be short for Jessica or used on its own.

A variant spelling of either Irish Shea or Hebrew Shai, Shay feels at once vintage and modern.

Inextricably tied to the former president, Reagan is a handsome surname name with a cool, current sound. Gender-neutral nickname Ray/Rae is also very on-trend right now.

Lindsey is one of the few truly unisex names (rather than being a name that has changed genders). Over time the "ey" ending was usually reserved for women and the "ay" ending reserved for men, and that tradition has continued

Nickname name from the era of Father Knows Best, though we can see it making something of a comeback, a la Clover and Pippa. Cricket has new potential especially since it has recently been chosen by Busy Philipps. Still, it's one of the quirkier girl names starting with C.

Paris, a one-time mythical and Shakespearean boys' name, peaked in 2004 at Number 157 at least in part due to the highly publicized Paris Hilton. Michael Jackson used it for his daughter.

This name leapt into the female column via vixen Alexis Carrington on 'Dynasty" in the 1980s. It's more popular for girls, but it's still a widely used boys' names and is one of the most popular unisex names in the US today.

Now that the popularity of Brooke is waning, and surname style variant Brooks is on the rise, Brook seems live a newly fresh nature-inspired option.

Kia is a sweet, simple name that is now, unfortunately, associated with a Korean car label. Better today: Nia, Thea, or Keira.

Associated with poetry, pop music, and the Greek lyre, Lyric has a light and zippy sound to it and joins the likes of Melody, Harmony, Cadence, and Aria as musical names that have become baby names. A unisex name, it is currently three times more popular for girls in the US where it sits in the Top 600. It has declined in use since its 2014 peak, but was still given to around 560 girls in a recent year.

Keeva, the name chosen by "How I Met Your Mother" star Alyson Hannigan for her daughter, has recently been a Top 20 name in Ireland, using the authentic spelling Caoimhe. The male version is Caomhin--anglicized as Kevin.

Penrose – an ancient place-name and surname derived from several villages in Cornwall, Wales, and the Welsh border country of England – would make for an even more unexpected alternative to quirky nature name Primrose. Intuitive nicknames Penny or Rosie make it feel more wearable.

A newly successful name for girls, which, like Brayden and Caden, used to be strictly for the boys. Young Heroes and now Nashville star Hayden Panettiere planted it in the girls' camp.

She'd better be. Merry is one of the classic names for Christmas babies.

Rustic and cosy, Russet is a color name, associated with the reddish-brown hues of earth and autumn, with homespun cloth, apples, and perhaps less appealingly, potatoes. While it has never featured in the US charts, it has plenty of potential.