UK Girl Names

A Pam for the modern age, improved by a harder edge and a tad less prissiness.

If there's an ancestral Earl you want to honor, consider Early instead.

Keats is both poetic and easier to pronounce (it's keets) than Yeats (which is yates).

Simple ancient name of a Celtic goddess, but her friends might sound like they were asking for more.

Merilee and Merrilee were early respelled or word names, ahead of their time in some ways. Merrilee hit the Top 1000 for a couple of years in the 1940s, but last year no baby girls were given either version of the name in the US, which makes it more appealing.

Eigra is a name with a great mythological and literary past - it is the Welsh version of Igraine/Ygraine, who was the mother of King Arthur.

The spelling makes the tradition Non even more of a non-name.

Kerr, a simple, unusual unisex middle-name choice, can be pronounced either car or kehr.

Harleth is a name which probably stems from combining the oh-so-trendy Harlow with the evergreen Elizabeth. However, literary parents may also remember the beautiful but difficult character Gwendolen Harleth from George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Harleth has a fashionable edge to it, being associated with rising supermodel Harleth Kuusik.

Brooke variation – or is the other way around? – that makes it more a nature name, less an eighties-style androgynous name.

All the names ending in-lyn seem sadly dated.

Sounds incomplete, like a pet form of Miranda.

Big Band-ish name could easily be confused with Darcy.

The cake company pretty much knocked this otherwise-pretty compilation name out of consideration for most parents.

Not even if your husband is named Ron.