Two Syllable Names for Girls

Justice is a fashionable word name, used for both girls and boys. Justice has the distinction of being a virtue name without the religious implications of Faith or Grace. It still feels more male than female, perhaps partly due to the classic Roman name Justus, but Justice has become a more common pick for girls in recent years.

So sweet it makes our teeth hurt. It has appeared in the US Top 1000 every year since 2006, though it dropped a significant 136 places from 2014 to 2015, and kept dropping to Number 974 in 2016.

Cool, serene name of the Egyptian river can make a fresh choice for a girl. The origin of river name Nile relates to the Arabic and ancient Hebrew word for dark blue or indigo; in ancient Egyptian, its literal meaning is river.

This name of the glamorous mean girl in "High School Musical" is a euphonic spin on the dog breed Shar Pei, a brilliant name joke skewering the practice of picking a name for its sound without considering what it means. Other examples: Cliche, Hooker.

Used by the Puritans but off the US charts completely since the mid-1990s, Eartha is best known today as the name of American singer Eartha Kitt, as well as of the philanthropist and humanitarian Eartha M. M. White.

High profile supermodel/entrepreneur Tyra Banks has put this name in the spotlight, endowing it with her confident, superattractive image.

When actress Tamera Mowry named her daughter Ariah, she said it was a Hebrew name meaning "lion of God" -- which it is, if you consider Ariah a variation of Ariel. But many sources consider Ariah a spelling variation of the Italian Aria, meaning song or literally air.

A name that is rarely heard and might be worth considering as a way of zipping up a namesake Sandra. It has long been associated with iconoclastic British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.

Frenchified name rarely used in France. And perhaps even more rarely used in the US -- there were NO baby girls given the name on the official records of 2021.

In Buddhism, Dharma embodies the basic principles of cosmic existence--making it a fitting name for the hippyish character on the sitcom Dharma and Greg, whose middle name was Freedom.

Sóley is the Icelandic word for the buttercup flower, derived from the words meaning "sun" and "island." It is also used on the Faroe Islands as a short form of Sólja.

One of the new color names that is catching on, invoking a calm, blue-green-sea feeling.

Lissa might be an abbreviation of Melissa, but it's more substantial in its own right: Lissa is the name of a supreme mother goddess in African mythology and an Arabic symbol of rebirth.

Hot star Ashton Kutcher is pushing this unisex choice toward the boys' camp, but its variation Ashtyn is on the rise.

Forsythe is a rare and intriguing surname name, most likely derived from the Old Gaelic name Fearsithe, meaning "man of peace." It may instead come from a bygone place name meaning "fairy meadow" or "fairy mound", from Gaelic fer "grass" or for "hill, mound" plus sithe "fairies."

Pretty Victorian-feeling cousin of Ariel; also, more prosaically, a kind of bay window.

Spelling of Rainey used by Andie MacDowell for her daughter, perhaps reflecting the ie ending of her own name. Rainey is the most popular spelling of the name, given to about 50 girls last year, with half as many called Rainy and a quarter named Rainie.