Animal Names for Girls

Amaris and Amarys are pretty modernized versions of the ancient Hebrew Amariah. Almost 300 baby girls were named Amaris in the US last year, along with nearly 100 boys, but only seven baby girls were given the Amarys spelling.

Ciri may sound exactly like the ubiquitous digital Siri, but it's achieving fame in its own right as the familiar name of Princess Cirilla of The Witcher series. The name's meaning is a nod to her royal status.

Soft and delicate French name rarely heard here.

Ece is another name for Umay, the Turkish goddess of the Earth and fertility. It is derived from the Old Turkic word eçe, meaning "mother."

The male and female versions of Aiman come from different origins. While the feminine Aiman has a lunar meaning and origins in Kazakhstan, the masculine Aiman is a variation of the Arabic name Ayman.

This lovely name is all but unknown outside Italy but fits perfectly in with the fashions for vowel-starting names that are elaborately feminine. Might make a distinctive alternative to Angelina or Arianna. Downside: People will inevitably mistake it for Adriana.

Arzu was once a popular baby name in Turkey, ranking as high as Number 14 in 1980. Now, it's more of a Turkish mom name, although it remains a common choice for babies in Azerbaijan, where Arzu has been in the Top 100 since records began in 2015.

A male name occasionally borrowed by the girls, as in Dorian Cramer, a long-running female character on the soap One Life to Live and famous midcentury model Dorian Leigh.

Auden is increasing in use for girls each year, and the feminized spelling Audyn is beginning to follow along. Parents are loving the gentle but unisex sound of this surname, associated with poet W.H., Auden.

Alika is a multicultural choice that's far off the beaten track.

Coppélia is the name of the life-sized doll created by Doctor Coppélius in the eponymous 1870 ballet, based on short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Coppélius' name may be derived from the Yiddish Koppel, a diminutive of Jacob.

An even more unusual alternative to the fashionable Adeline and Adelaide, Adalind comes from the same Ancient Germanic root adal, meaning "noble". Adalind Schade is a character on the popular NBC show Grimm.

This iteration of the name makes the link to the ultra-popular Emma even more obvious. It lags behind alternate spelling Emmeline on the US Top 1000 list.

Annis and Anice are both antique variations of Agnes that have fallen out of use, perhaps because of pronunciation problems (ANN-is, or an-EES?)

Part Ava, part Evelyn, this name made its first appearance in the US Top 1000 in 2013 when it was one of the fastest-rising names of the year. Joining Gracelyn, Raelynn, and Emmalyn in the charts, Avalyn followed the same pattern of smooshing together a popular name with the suffix -lynn.

This Indonesian name meaning little goddess is also common in the Netherlands due to the old colonial relationship between the two countries.

A feminization of Adam with several sweet nickname options — Addie, Ada, Minnie, or Mina being a few.

Tuneful variation on the Claire names.