Nameberry's Favorite Names

The name of a heavenly planet and the Roman goddess of beauty and love was an intimidating no-no until tennis champ Venus Williams put an athletic, modern spin on it.

Ike, once the quirky one-person nickname of President Dwight Eisenhower, has morphed into a cool kid nickname of the early 21st century.

An interesting unisex possibility, with an air of mystery connected to the Delphic Oracle, the most important oracle in ancient Greece; it was also a major site for the worship of the god Apollo.

Euphonious and long stylish in England, India was one of the fastest-rising names on the 2013 list, after jumping 240 spots back into the Top 1000.

This version stands out from the pack of Alyssas, Elissas et al, as Elysia relates to Elysian Fields, the mythological home of the blessed.

Cute kid with freckles, bouncing a Spalding ball. Cool couple Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton put the name Billy Burton on their son's birth certificate. While the classic William, name of the future king of England, may in fact be German, the nickname Billy along with such other classic short forms as Jim and Joe are authentically English names for boys.

A Quranic name — sometimes spelled Zidane — that's also familiar as a surname, especially of French soccer star Zinedine Zidane.

Tula is a polyethnic name which, spelled Toula, was used for the heroine of the hit film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Graceful Indian choice that may sound feminine to the Western ear but is in fact the name of a male god. One form of worship of Surya that may be familiar to Westerners is the sun salutation in yoga.

Eris was the goddess of strife and discord, turned fairy tale and then popular culture figure Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. Ironic, as her name sounds so much like that of Eros, the god of love.

Aslan, derived from the Old Turkic word arslan, meaning "lion," is best known in the West as the name of the heroic lion in C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series, who serves as an allegorical stand-in for Jesus Christ. It was also used as a positive epithet for several Turkish emperors in the Middle Ages.

Aida is a melodic name largely associated with the title character of the 1871 Verdi opera, an enslaved Ethiopian princess who dies to save her people. In the past, her name was rarely heard outside the Latino community, but in the current time of love for all A-starting girls' names, this could very well change.

Anwen is one of the simplest and best of the classic Welsh girls' names, more unusual than Bronwen but with the same serene feel.

Tala is a super multicultural name with roots in many diverse languages and cultures. In Northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia, it is a diminutive derived from Adelheid "noble", long used as a standalone name.

One of those place and surname names that hasn't be used much as a first name yet -- but could soon. You could think of it as a fun, one-syllable twist on Amos. Ames is also notable as a surname that comes from a female name, Amys or Amice, ultimately deriving from the Latin amicus, "friend".

Kent is a no-nonsense, brief, brisk one-syllable name, almost as curt as Kurt.

Brecken is a fresh, distinctively Irish alternative to similar-sounding (and much more popular) Beckett or Beckham. While Brecken is a spelling variation of the original Breccan, it's the most popular form of the name. By whatever spelling, it's a name we'll likely see rise in popularity.

Just when we had written off Peggy as the eternal perky, pug-nosed prom-queen she projected from the 1920s into the fifties, along came Mad Men, with intriguing mid-century characters with names like Joan and Betty--and Peggy, causing a bit of a re-think. MM's proto-feminist Peggy Olson was followed by Amy Adams's strong Oscar-nominated Peggy Dodd character in The Master.

Oak, a symbol of solidity, strength, and longevity, is joining Cedar and Pine as a viable name, one that would work especially well in the middle.

An Irish and Welsh form of Catherine, Caitlin was a boom name of the eighties, rocketing from obscurity (Americans first heard it via the wife of doomed poet Dylan Thomas) to the height of popularity in the space of a decade. The original name was gradually eclipsed by its myriad spelling variations -- Katelyn and Kaitlyn both soon topping it on the popularity lists.