UK Girl Names

Faine is a very unusual one-syllable option.

Why bother to invent a new name or spelling when there are intriguing oddities like this in existence. Also in the Welsh encyclopedia of names: Ffion, Ffiona, and Ffraid, the Welsh form of Brigid.

A rising surname name for girls — it's overwhelmingly feminine, despite the association with Kenny Chesney.

You can call your baby "babe," but don't name her that.

Destry rides again, this time as a Western flavored baby name. Derived from the French surname Destrier, from an Anglo-Norman word meaning "warhorse", this rugged name was popularized by the 1930 novel Destry Rides Again by Max Brand, subsequently adapted for the big screen.

Used quietly on boys in the US since the early 20th century, Mckenzie was abruptly overtaken by the Mackenzie spelling back in 1973 when actress Mackenzie Phillips introduced the name as a possibility for girls. While Mckenzie has never matched its sibling spelling in popularity, it nevertheless climbed the charts in its wake, peaking in 2000 at #133.

While not generally thought of as unisex, this is a male name that, like Perry and Barry, has occasionally been used for girls over the years.

A diminutive of the (male) name Dafydd, the Welsh form of David. In the US, it's strongly associated with the candy.

The legendary St. Non was the mother of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. David was raised in a convent by his mother and went on to become a great teacher and bishop. Non is also known as Nonna and Nonita, and is associated with Cornwall and Brittany along with Wales. While the name Non is well-used in Wales, it is largely unknown in the US and maybe be heard as the negative word "none" or prefix "non".

Long before the current place-name craze, a pair of the more daring pop singers of the Age of Aquarius picked this name for their daughters. Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick used the conventional spelling, the Mamas and the Papas's Michelle Phillips went further afield with Chynna (of the group Wilson Phillips).

Glenys, like Glynis, is a Welsh name that has never caught on outside Wales.

Divine seems more proper a name with the rise of Heaven and its turned-around twin Nevaeh. Though superlative names like Divine -- Unique, say, or Precious -- sometimes seems as if they're trying to hard and protesting too much.

Taliesin is a name an architecture-minded parent could love, because of its close association with Frank Lloyd Wright.

More unusual than Tessa, this would make an interesting, meaningful and attractive choice for a third child.

Photographer Diane Arbus named her daughter Doon, inspired by the sand dunes she walked among when pregnant. Used this way, Doon might be considered a nature name, a refashioning of the word dune. But Doon might also stem from the familiar Scottish surname Dunn or Dunne, which means brown or dark, originally used for a dark-haired person.

Carlisle may be a male name in Twilight (he's vampire hero Edward's adoptive father), but in the real baby naming world, it's used about a quarter of the time for girls. Unusual now, we think Carlisle (or Carlyle) has the potential to be the next Carter.

This unusual offshoot of Page is one of the undiscovered unique baby names, with lots of energy and charm. Actress Paget Brewster, star of Criminal Minds, presents another spelling possibility. She comes from a family of unique names--her mother is Hathaway, her father Galen.

Surname name with an uplifting meaning. Just beware that this is a well-known mattress brand.

Gentry is a word name that's gaining ground for girls as a kind of updated Jennifer, especially in the Jentry (or Jentri or Jentree) spelling.