Maine Place Names

Otis has real appeal for parents attracted to its catchy O initial and combination of strength and spunk. The appealing hero of the British TV show Sex Education has done much to propel Otis into the forefront of cool names.

An ancient city in modern-day Syria, which occasionally makes the roster of girl names. Its etymology is uncertain — locally it is called Tadmor, and Palmyra is the Greek version — but it has traditionally been associated with palm trees.

It may surprise you to know that surname name Porter was fairly popular in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries, then went underground for 40 years only to reemerge at the turn of this century and climb the ladder again.

Now that the show has gone into reruns, does anybody still love Raymond? Though it's been long dormant, some parents, including Jack Nicholson, are finding its cool name component, largely through the nickname Ray.

Richmond is a place-name — it's the capital of Virginia — that makes a fresh way to honor an ancestral Richard.

While Sidney in this spelling has a long history as a girls' name, it fell off the Top 1000 from the early 50s until 1990. Then it reemerged as one of the newly chic androgynous names for girls, rising into the Top 300 before falling off the Top 1000 list again in 2016. Sydney is now the more fashionable form.

There's only one Trenton, New Jersey, but it's a widely used name, more for its fashionable -on ending than the reference to the city. Since 2007, however, Trenton has been on a steady decline. Trenten is another popular spelling.

Troy shot to popularity as a first name in tandem with that of 1960s heartthrob Troy (born Merle) Donahue; its image has now, thanks in part to the Brad Pitt-starring epic, Troy, receded back to conjuring up the ancient site of the Trojan wars.

Verona is a scenic place-name with the added attraction of a Shakespearean connection, as in Two Gentlemen of....

Its jaunty o-ending makes this name more appealing than most of its Germanic brothers, and we hope we're beyond the constant response to his name being "Where's Waldo?" The weighty reputation of writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson adds a measure of backbone to the name.

Long lingering in limbo, Warren suddenly seems to be on the cusp of revival. One of the oldest recorded English surnames, Warren's popularity in the U.S. dates back to the nineteenth century, and by 1921, reached its peak at Number 24.

Proper Bostonian.