Baby 2 - Unusual Boy or Girl Names

Quirky cool Arlo is now well and truly back. Last year it broke into the US Top 200 boy names and consistently ranks among the most popular boy names on Nameberry.

Fairy-tale memories of Sleeping Beauty inspire some parents—such as Rachel Bilson and Hayden Christensen—to call their daughters Briar Rose. But Briar plus a different middle name might work even better. It's one of the newly popular nature-word names, charting in the US for the first time in 2015 for both genders.

The seventh most common surname in Scotland, once associated only with soup, is now being considered as a last-name-first choice, accessible but unusual.

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.

Jean Harlow (born Harlean Carpenter), the original platinum blonde bombshell, was a symbol of 1930s glamour, a factor that first Patricia Arquette and then Nicole Richie and Joel Madden probably had in mind when they gave their daughters the distinctive surname name Harlow.

A familiar and usable last name turned first. Or you could look at it as a homophone of the verb howl, which gives it a wilder feel.

Actor Kit Harington, aka the dreamy Jon Snow on Game of Thrones, has given this nickname-name new style and appeal for boys. Actress Jodie Foster used it for her son.

The fame of actress and Aerosmith daughter Liv Tyler helped to infuse life into this short but solid Scandinavian name that was chosen for her daughter by Julianne Moore.

This simple, elegant name offers something for many kinds of parents, from writers and history buffs to photographers to Pennsylvania dwellers. Most famous bearers are comedian Penn Jillette and Gossip Girl hottie Penn Badgley, both of whom were given this distinctive name at birth. Long obscure, Penn seems destined for greater usage.

Piers was the first version of Peter to reach the English-speaking world, via the Normans, but it's never made it in the US, despite its large measure of understated panache. This might change due to the high visibility of TV personality and former news editor Piers Morgan.

Pippa, a peppy condensation of Philippa that turns it from serious to sprightly, has come into the public eye in a big way via the former Kate Middleton's sister.

This gentle Scandinavian name, soft and sensitive, is being discovered in a major way by parents in the US. It's most closely identified with the nineteenth century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, but there have been modern fictional Sorens as well, in The Matrix Reloaded and the book series Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Charlie and Lola, and Underworld.

A name with some sterling qualities, most associated with the British currency and silver markets. Sterling has several recent TV associations, with characters Roger Sterling (on Mad Men) and Sterling Archer (on Archer), and actor Sterling K. Brown (on This is Us).

Famously borne by the woman (born Bessie) for whom an English king sacrificed his throne, Wallis has the force of a masculine name with a distinctive spelling to set it apart from the boys. Anthony Edwards revived it for his daughter, and we're hearing some buzz about it on Nameberry.