UK Girl Names

Adley made the Top 1000 at Number 735 in 2012 on the heels of sister name Hadley, only to vanish again in 2013. But now, with the popularity of Adelaide and Adeline, it has leaped upward and entered the Top 1000 once again. Adley feels in step with name trends of the moment, but will it survive the ages? Other such mashups have not.

The tree, not the charred bit of soot in the fireplace, usually used for boys, but, as a short form of Ashley, works for girls too.

Short, but still kind of a mouthful.

An unusual flower name deriving from the Latin word for lily (lilium), this variant has always been popular in Scotland.

Traditionally a male name, Leith now can make a highly unusual, strong but soft, and intriguing girls' possibility.

Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin's daughter Ireland opened up the map for names like Scotland, and now that it's been chosen by Kourtney Kardashian for her daughter Penelope's middle name -- in honor of daddy Scott Disick -- Scotland is sure to appear on more birth certificates. Can Scotlyn be far behind?

American parents are just becoming aware of Welsh names like this one, similar to Carys, which was chosen by Welsh-born Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Laurie morphed into the more streamlined Lori in the sixties but now feels dated for a girl in either spelling. Update Lauren has been renovated as Laurel or Laura itself.

Fluttery and flighty. But there are a couple of names that mean butterfly you might consider, such as Yara and Farasha.

A name that works until your daughter is, say, six.

Ever since singer Michelle Branch gave it to her daughter in 2005, Owen has started to be used for a small number of girls each year as well. Just 39 baby girls received the name in 2021, compared with over 8700 boys.

Audrina is a name that owes its fame to overnight reality TV sensation Audrina Partridge, one of the original cast of the MTV reality series The Hills.

Sweet, modern descriptive name, but perhaps a little too cute for its own good.

After entering the Top 1000 in 2009, Raelyn has climbed the charts. It's ridden the coattails of Raelynn (which remains more popular), but also may be benefiting from the rise of Brooklyn. The use of -Lyn and -Lynn suffixes has grown in recent years, even as the name Lynn itself languishes.

This jazzy old name could make a comeback, the way Josephine and Ella have. In England the name was popularized by Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, after whom her governor general of Canada husband named the North American province. Jazz singer Alberta Hunter was a noted bearer.

While the most famous Channing is the very male Channing Tatum, the name is now given about a third of the time for girls. It makes an attractive surname-name for either gender.

Sounds elven in every sense of the word.

Can one prominent character affect the gender identity of a name? Definitely, as has supernatural bad girl Ridley Duchannes of the Beautiful Creatures series-turned-movie, played by the gorgeous Emmy Rossum. Before Duchannes, director Ridley Scott all but owned this unusual surname and so gave it a male spin, but it feels girl-appropriate too. And the trendy -ley ending, as in Hadley and Ashley, helps.

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.

Though it's used far more often for boys, Lyle has a lot in common with today's trending girl names that share the double L sound: Lila, Layla, and Lola.