Current Crushes - Name Dump

Walker is both a Waspy surname name—as in the W in George W. Bush—but it also has a gentle ambling quality and a creative connection to such greats as writer Walker Percy and photographer Walker Evans, whose father was also named Walker.

Wells is a newly-famous baby name thanks to pregnancy guru Rosie Pope, who uses it as the short form of the buttoned-up Wellington, name of her youngest child.

If you discount the connection to the controversial Whittaker Chambers in the days of the Red Scare, Whittaker is a pleasant enough British surname with the preppyish nickname Whit.

Variation of Isolde, the name of a great Celtic heroine. The mononymous French singer Yseult is the most notable bearer today.

The name of the tragic heroine of Alexander Pushkin's narrative poem The Gypsies, which has been adapted into several dozen ballets and operas. It may also have inspired Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen, on which the famous opera of the same name was based.

This shortened form of Zephaniah makes an original Old Testament choice. It might plausibly make an honor name for Stephen or Stephan, and comes with the appealing short form Zeph.