Place Names

The famous home of Hamlet in Shakespeare's great play is based on an actual castle in northern Denmark, which guarded the narrow entryway to the Baltic Sea for centuries. (The Danish word for it is Helsingør.) Elsinore may claim a rightful place among the Danish names for girls, vaguely akin to Eleanor, with Elsie a natural nickname, though some may find it a little pretentious. But as a middle name for the lover of Shakespeare or Copenhagen? Golden.

Kipling calls to mind writer Rudyard (b. Joseph) Kipling, author of the stories familiar to schoolchildren Gunga Din and The Jungle Story. Certainly, Kipling is a friendlier name than Rudyard these days, complete with cute short form Kip.

This geographical name, which belongs to an English Premier League football club, is popular in soccer-mad Brazil.

The Vale of Tempe is an important place in Greek mythology as well as a real place in Greece. The ancient poets wrote of it as the halcyon dwelling of Apollo and the Muses. The modern cities in Arizona and Australia are named for the Greek Tempe, which is pronounced tem-pee.

Triana is a Top 50 girls' name in Spain largely unknown and unused in the US: Only 10 baby girls in the US were given the name in 2017. Also a surname, Triana is the name of a distinctive neighborhood of Seville that's known for being home to artists, flamenco dancers, and bullfighters. Its name comes from the Roman emperor Trajan, which means "three rivers". Some sources list Triana as a short form of Katherine, a variation of Trina, and you can use it that way to honor an ancestral Katherine.

Now deeply associated with the gemstone Lapis Lazuli, Lazuli is derived from one of the places where the stone was first mined. The word Lazuli is the root for words like azure. Lapis Lazuli is a deep and rich blue color and was used for pigments and jewellery. Lazuli can be used for a boy or a girl.

This spelling is more unisex than either Luca or Luka, perhaps because it is also an Italian city name. However, it fell for both genders in 2021, as the Disney movie Luca sent that spelling skyrocketing.

Holston is a uniquely Southern place name — that of a river, lake, and mountain in Tennessee, as well as a town in Virginia. Holston was first used for the river, previously called the Cherokee River. It was adapted from the surname of pioneer Stephen Holstein, who resided alongside the river. Holstein was the name of a Saxon tribe and is now a region in Germany.

The capital of Kenya makes a melodic and worldly name.

The son of Lancelot and Elaine in Arthurian legend, Galahad is the purest and most chivalrous of the Knights of the Round Table, and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail. The derivation of his name is unclear. It may come from Welsh Gwalchafed (hawk of summer) or "gwalch" + "cad" (hawk of battle), or it may be an anglicization of the place name Gilead in Palestine. Certainly a bold and brave choice for a baby boy!

The name of the resort city on Spain's Costa del Sol is pronounced mar-BAY-a, setting it apart from the bella-name competition -- though many English speakers won't realize that.

Great middle name choice for music lovers or those with Scottish roots, also spelled Fyfe.

A unisex cultural crossover that has seen a little use from the 1990s onwards. In Japanese mythology, Inari is an androgynous deity associated with rice, tea and foxes. In Finland, it is the name of a region, lake and village which is a center of Sami culture.

Rockers Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz put a new baby name on the map when they chose this downscale New York borough name for their son. The Bronx, the place, was named for early Dutch settler Jonas Bronck. Might Bronx become the next Brooklyn? We'd be surprised if it did.

A unisex cultural crossover that has seen a little use from the 1990s onwards. In Japanese mythology, Inari is an androgynous deity associated with rice, tea and foxes. In Finland, it is the name of a region, lake and village which is a center of Sami culture.

A name with something for everyone: for romantics, it's a beautiful Indonesian island; for teckies, it's a computer programming language.

Mount Olivet is a mountain ridge east of and adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City. It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes. Several key events in the life of Jesus, as related in the Gospels, took place on the Mount of Olives, and in the Acts of the Apostles it is described as the place from which Jesus ascended to heaven. This name makes a fresh alternative to Olivia and is worthy of consideration.

No matter how much you love the novels of Papa H., don't saddle your son with this unwieldy appellation.

Mosley, former best known as the surname of author Walter, has been put in play as a first name for girls by football great Peyton Manning, who used the name for his twin daughter, sister of Marshall. Alternate spellings are Moseley and Mosely and the first syllable rhymes with Rose.

The name of an extremely civilized, wealthy city in the north of Italy merits more notice as a first name, a la Verona and Milan. It was used as one in the Canadian sci-fi series Killjoys.