Favorites (Personal)

Asher—an excellent, soft and sensitive Old Testament choice—is a baby boy name on the rise, and is a Nameberry biblical favorite.

Ella is a sweet, simple name that owes much of its current popularity to the popularity of other names, from Emma to Bella to Emily to Ellie.

Eve, the oldest name in the Book, is now coming back into style, having the virtues of simplicity and purity, yet with more strength and resonance than other single-syllable names like Ann. British actor Clive Owen chose Eve for his daughter, as did Jessica Capshaw.

No, we don't consider Jane too plain. In fact, for a venerable and short one-syllable name, we think it packs a surprising amount of punch, as compared to the related Jean and Joan.

Maeve is a short and sweet name that has become one of the most stylish Irish names for girls in the modern US. Maeve would make an excellent first or middle name choice, with more heft than Mae/May and more modern charm than Mavis.

Is it Marlo, Marlow, or Marlowe? Suddenly they all seem very much in the air, in tune with rhyming cousins Harlow and Arlo. It all started when Margaret Julia Thomas began being known as Marlo (after being previously nicknamed Margie and Marlow). More recently, Jason Schwartzman used the e-ending version for his young daughter, Marlowe Rivers, as did Sienna Miller for her baby girl Marlowe Ottoline.

Miles, which has a permanent veneer of cool thanks to jazz great Miles Davis, is a confident and polished boys' name that's an American classic. Always ranking in the US Top 1000, it's been drifting up the charts for the past half century but has never been TOO popular.

Unconventional nickname option that's best kept as a nickname.

Nora is a lovely, refined name that conjures up images of Belle Epoch ladies in fur-trimmed coats skating in Central Park. Long seen as a quintessentially Irish name though its roots are not in Ireland, Nora is a quietly stylish favorite that's tiptoed to the top of the popularity ladder.

Sleek and smart, with a hint of mystique about it, Silas is a recent addition to the US Top 100. Both mythological and Biblical in origin, Silas joins the ranks of Isaiah, Atlas, Elias, and Sebastian: polished and contemporary feeling names with plenty of history.

Thatcher is an open and friendly freckle-faced surname, fresher sounding than Tyler or Taylor, that dates back to the days of thatched-roof cottages. It is catching on with modern parents—it reached the US Top 1000 for the first time in 2013.

Zoe is one of those surprising names that has been on the Top 1000 nearly every year since 1880, but it's only since the turn of this century that it's ranked in the Top 100.