Names That Mean Place

A new crop of gender-neutral English place names have suddenly become trendy — those ending in -ton. Multi-syllabic but not dramatic, these names are rising quickly for girls and boys. Think Charleston, Lexington, and Kensington. Livingston isn't as hot as some of the others, but its time will soon come. For a girl, Livingston boasts the nickname Liv.

The name of the capital city of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County, which is thought to come from a Kansa word meaning "good place to grow potatoes".

Pilgrimage site in Italy.

The historic name for the south-west corner of Wales, deriving from the British tribe of the Demetae.

A perfect example of what a difference a single letter can make. Add an 'a' to the ho-hum Cathy and you have the old name for China, often used by such poets as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Ezra Pound.

According to legend -- and, crucially, the Wonder Woman comics and movies -- Themyscira is the home of the Amazons, a mythical race of powerful female warriors. As depicted in the DC comics, Themyscira is a lush utopian island in the middle of a vast ocean. It was also the name of a real town in the Ancient Greek world, on the southern coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey.

Lisa Loeb used this intriguing name as the middle for her son Emet.

A family name, a bit haughty.

The name America is given to around 100 baby girls each year, mostly within the Hispanic and Latin American communities. The national charts do not record diacritical marks like accents, but at least some of those baby girls spell their names with one. Model América González is among them.

Valletta is the capital city of Malta. It takes on an air of attractiveness via model Amber Valletta and could make an appealing alternative to the somewhat dated Valerie.

Bardou is a holiday destination in France, known for its pictureque village nestled in mountains. It is also a region of Guinea. As a name, it is more commonly known from its English derivation, meaning axe-wielding wolf.

A jaunty nautical-sounding name.

Family surname or feminist statement name? Either way, this literary surname has a cool, current sound.

This name of an old Armenian city, might sound a little too masculine for use here. Variations include the more feminine Garine and Karine.

In the same unisex placename/surname style as Oakley and Hadlee, this name makes total sense but has never been on the American charts. Rushlee Buchanan is a New Zealand Olympic cyclist.

Brixton is a once-tough now-gentrifying-and-cool area of London that has also become one of the hottest boys' names in the US, entering the Top 1000 names list in 2015. Spelling variation Brixten was used for less than 10 percent of the babies given the name,. Names with an x in the middle tend to sound cool and modern even when their roots are anything but. Another reason Brixton and Brixten are hot is its similarity to the increasingly popular Braxton.

A Catalan county name used for both girls and boys in its homeland.

Caer Dathyl, whose name is of obscure origin, is a fortress mentioned in the medieval Mabinogi tales, and re-used by Lloyd Alexander in his Welsh-inspired Chronicles of Prydain.