Bad Girl Names

Once unique to the Zappa family, now you can have your own little prima donna.

This biblical place-name for the region now known as Yemen started to feel fresh again as the name of the heroine of Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, played on screen by Cate Blanchett.

For a boy, Dash is usually short for Dashiell, but as a girl's name it just stands for energetic--and also the stores run by the Kardashian sisters..

The calming variety of marijuana, used as a baby name every year since 1992.

As this word is less often used to mean derriere, it becomes more possible to view Fanny as the kind of appealingly quaint nickname name, like Josie and Nellie, that many parents are favoring now.

A plausible color name, it was chosen by the singer Sting as a middle name for his daughter, after a character in the Gormenghast fantasy trilogy, of which he's a big fan.

Some parents, including rapper Ludacris, are literally bestowing good karma on their children; it could just join the new spiritual name congregation.

Although this name literally means disaster, the use of Calamity as a descriptor of Martha Jane Cannery, aka Calamity Jane, was meant to signal that she was a good person to have in troubled times. Calamity Jane was well regarded as a frontierswoman and nurse, someone who was said to be extremely generous and compassionate to the sick and troubled.. Calamity's connection to the American West gives this a roguish name a sort of windswept charm about it. Indeed, the most controversial aspect of this name is its connection to the frontier wars that led to the dispossession of Native American peoples.

Zuleika is a high-wire act of a name that might appeal to the intrepid baby namer, Like most 'Z'-starting girls' names, it projects a cool, strong aura, as exemplified by the character in Max Beerbohm's satirical 1910 novel, Zuleika Dobson, a heroine so gorgeous that the entire student body of Oxford University committed collective suicide at the sight of her.

Mary was such a common name for so long that it sprouted a whole family of chimeric name splices: Maryann, Marybeth, Mary-Lousie, ad infinitum. Spiderman's Mary Jane Watson, the closed toe shoe with a strap, and the common nickname for marijuana have helped keep this one especially familiar to the American ear.

Mythological princess who killed her kids. Eternal no-no.

Beware: Flame is the kind of name used by women named Fran when engaging in endeavors they'd just as soon their parents weren't aware of.

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

There's only one. Okay, two.

Place names like Memphis, Harlem, Cairo, Vienna, Milan, and Astoria are right on trend at the moment, and Egypt could fit in, thanks to its similarity in sound to the likes of Edith and Eden. Alicia Keys used the name for her son back in 2010, but before that, it was used as a stage name for three famous belly dancers.

Musical choice that may be a short form of Jasmine or Jazlyn, or might stand on its own like this or as Jaz, the spelling used by tennis duo Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi.

Spicy.

More a concept than a place -- or a name.

Beware: extremely high pressure, high-expectation name.

Pistol is one of the new names that entered the lexicon in the US in 2013, when it was given to nine babies of each gender. Call it an equal-opportunity badass baby name with an unfortunately violent image.