Favorite Girl Names

One of the few ella names that's not on every other new mother's lips -- a definite plus.

Fallon is one of several boyish surname names introduced in the over-the-top 1980s nighttime soap Dynasty: they sounded cutting-edge at the time, but no longer.

As cool as the precious green stone said to transmit wisdom, clarity, justice, courage, and modesty, Jade has been rising in popularity since Mick and Bianca Jagger chose it for their daughter in 1971. Jade is one of the top names in France. Superchef Giada de Laurentiis chose it as the English translation of her own first name. Jade manages to strike the golden mean as one of the familiar-yet-unusual girl names starting with J.

This pretty, succinct Arabic name is also commonly used as a nickname for names like Carolina.

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.