Place Names for Babies

The name of the capital city of the Philippines is just conceivable as a baby name, giving off the faint scent of vanilla.

Introduced to the baby name lexicon by Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick when they used it as the middle name for their daughter Penelope. As they've proven, it's a nouveau way to honor a Scott.

A rare and evocative place name for a girl. Seville is the capital of Andalusia, an autonomous community in Spain. The Spanish name, Sevilla, derived from the Phoenician word sefela, meaning "plain" or "valley."

Strong, spare, and highly unusual -- there were no babies recorded of either gender receiving this name in one recent year -- place-name referring to the northernmost state in New England. All state names qualify as distinctly American names.

An example of the Welsh love of naming children after rivers and places. Colwyn is rare in the States but has genuine appeal: no hidden spelling traps, and similar-yet-different to names like Colton, Colson and Colin.

Fiji is a pleasingly quirky place name that's been little used for babies, but could work for either a boy or girl. Though it has been used quite a lot for fancy bottled water, we don't think it quite qualifies as a water name.

Though this Biblical place name is found among early American settlers, usually as a male name, today it sounds completely feminine. As a place name, its gender is mutable in any case. An unusual and intriguing Biblical option, albeit one with an unhappy meaning.

Long synonymous with the American outlaw Harry Longabaugh, aka The Sundance Kid, who got his nickname from the town of Sundance, Wyoming, where he was incarcerated as a teenager. The place name Sundance was taken from the sun dance ceremony practiced by local Native American tribes.

Philippine would be taken as an ethnic identification rather than a name in the U.S. Better try Philippa, though if you don't mind eternally correcting people, Philippine can make an interesting alternative. Pippa can be a short form of Philippine as well as Philippa.

Originally used as a surname for someone from Verlaine in the Liege province of Belgium, its use as a given name was inspired by the 19th century French poet, Paul Verlaine. Predominantly used as a feminine name, sources suggest it could mean "true" or "truth" from the French vrai or the Latin veritas, or from the French laine meaning "wool" in reference to wool production in Liege.

The capital of Peru makes a rare but attractive girl name.

Lexington is trending as a unisex name, used just about evenly for the genders. For Americans, it's got a patriotic feel, given the importance of Lexington, Massachusetts in the Revolutionary War. Lexington, Kentucky, in horse country, is another well-known city with the name. Short form Lex is user friendly.

Oceania is one of the most elaborate of the trending Ocean-related names. Oceania also refers to the area of the world including Australia and neighboring islands.

A Greek island and popular summer destination, Paros received its name after Parus, a son of the Arcadian king Parrhasius.

South America provides a continent of interesting, undiscovered names -- Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, and the tango-rhythmed Argentina.

Lincoln, Tyler, Taylor, Jackson, Jefferson, Harrison, McKinley, Grant, Kennedy, Carter -- yes. Washington -- probably not.

This name of one of the most romantic cities in the world could easily find its way onto an American baby boy's birth certificate. You could also think of it as a fun, atlas-inspired twist on Denis.

Kauai is known as the Garden Isle of Hawaii. Ironically, it qualifies as a baby name based on spelling variation and homonym Kawhi, as in basketball star Kawhi Leonard.

The name of a city in New Hampshire which takes its name from the Nashua River, named by the Indigenous Algonquian tribe the Nashuway or Nashua. A striking alternative to Joshua.

Both Soho and Noho--no-no.