GIRL B NAMES

If you want a pan-Scandinavian name with energy and style that could have been a winner, if not for the sound-alike water filtration company Brita.

Brittany first arrived on the US popularity list in 1971, and rapidly zoomed up the charts, in the Top 100 a decade later. By 1986 it had entered the Top 10, becoming the third most popular girls’ name in the country by 1989.

Bronwen is widespread in Wales, but still rare enough here to sound somewhat international — we think Bronwen is a real winner. (Note: the Bronwyn spelling is an Anglicization, since the -wyn ending is masculine in Welsh).

Brooke variation – or is the other way around? – that makes it more a nature name, less an eighties-style androgynous name.

One of the Valkyries, still clad in heavy armor.

More of the seemingly infinite variations of this name.

Bryn is an up-and-coming gentle, yet substantial, Welsh name that would also be effective in the middle spot. In Wales it's a traditional boys' name, but it's far more popular for girls now in the US.

You say Bryn, he says Bryana -- here's a name you might agree on.

Bryony is an unusually strong plant name --the bryony is a wild climbing vine with green flowers --that caught on in the U.K. before sprouting here. The name of the young character in the Ian McEwan novel Atonement is spelled Briony, which is the variation and Bryony the original.