UK Baby Names

While this has a distinguished male namesake -- astronomer Edmund Halley and his comet -- it still strays too close to the superpopular feminine Hailey family to work for some parents for a boy. Fewer than five baby boys were given the name last year, but that could change as formerly-female names become more acceptable for boys.

Dancer feels like a name ready to leap into the charts with its sense of life and joy; and if names like Hunter and Archer can be used, why not Dancer. There will be some danger of other kids relating this one to Santa's reindeer and it might make a good name for a Christmas baby, but that might be a positive connotation for a child.

A city and river in Scotland; this is upbeat and cheery, but doesn't seem that appropriate as a name.

Interesting possibility for the son or grandson of a Gregory.

Gentle and southern-inflected, redolent of the North Carolina landscape.

If this name makes you think of Victorian novels, it's because Fairfax was part of Mr Rochester's name in Jane Eyre, and the surname of a minor character in Jane Austen's Emma. It has a distinctly aristocratic feel, despite its straightforward meaning. Fairfax is also a city in Virginia.

Could catch on in tandem with the newfound popularity of Griffin and Griffith.

Affrica has long been a popular name on the Isle of Man, where long ago there was a Princess named Affrica.

One of the best of this fashionable occupational group, strong and particularly well suited to a girl, also with alluring connection to glamour girl Ava Gardner.

Baby name as political statement.

Today's Veronicas would be called Veronica.

A family name, a bit haughty.

Surname doomed to remain a surname.

So identified with the hero of the Sir Walter Scott novel, it would be almost impossible for any boy to carry.

Could be a possible and more modern, namesake for Uncle Neal.