Unique Girl Names: Uncommon, Unusual, Cool

Jacobine is a rare -- no baby girls received the name in the US last year -- feminine form of the popular Jacob. But Jacobine has a quirky appeal. The Jacobins were a radical political club formed during the French revolution as well as an order of Dominican friars.

Another of the new Greek-accented Cal- names.

Short form of Bronisława, usually spelt Bronia in Poland.

Brisk but rather brittle. Britt Eklund was a Bond Girl in the 1974 The Man with the Golden Gun. Britt is a contracted form of Birgit, but be aware that it does come with the strong possibility of being confused with Bret/Brett—or as a shortening of Brittany.

A word name with fashionable o-ending that has associations with both the homespun fabric and the mottled cat. Alice Cooper named his daughter Calico decades ago.

Marine is an extremely popular and fashionable name in France that's virtually unknown here — and is ready to set sail. Marine feels more contemporary than Marina and less hippie-esque than Oceane, another popular name for girls in France.

Gretel originated as a nickname for Margarete, the German form of Margaret. It’s a charming name, but most American parents prefer Greta, as Gretel is strongly tied to the fairy tale heroine.

While the most famous Channing is the very male Channing Tatum, the name is now given about a third of the time for girls. It makes an attractive surname-name for either gender.

Swap two letters of Birdie and you get Bridie, a traditional diminutive of Bridget. Bridie fits perfectly with the trend for standalone vintage nicknames like Betty and Sadie, but is surprisingly rare.

This is a rare and lovely form of Susannah commonly heard in Israel. Shoshana Shapiro — nicknamed Shosh — is the character played by Zosia Mamet on the hit HBO series Girls — a fact that could give the name an upward thrust.

The name of an affluent suburb of Columbus, Ohio and a section of Greater London, Bexley is increasingly being coopted by parents looking for a novel name in the Kinsley/AInsley/Paisley family. Bexley debuted on the US Top 1000 in 2016 and is definitely one of the trendiest girl names starting with B. Think of it as a 21st century Becky.

This is an energetic dance of an Irish surname, great for both genders. Could also be spelled Delancy.

The name of an area in northern Greece, known in the era of Homer's Odyssey as Aeolia, Thessaly makes a spirited and pretty place name. Reminiscent of Tessa, Rosalie, and Thea, the name likely derives from that of an ancient tribe, though the exact meaning isn't known.

A cute nickname, but June is a much better bet for the birth certificate.

An Ethiopian girls' name with a bright and cheerful sound — rhyming with Haven. Feven is the Ge'ez variant of Biblical Phoebe, also the goddess of the moon and hunting in Greek mythology. In 2022, there were 5 baby girls given the name Feven.

A rarely heard Hebrew name whose zippy first initial Z transforms it from dated Yetta-like image to more lively Catherine Zeta Jones-like appeal.

Japanese classic with optimistic meaning.

In Japan, color names symbolize human qualities (in this case, fame); name of gifted violist Midori, but also a Japanese melon liqueur.

Novelist Djuna Barnes introduced this interesting and unusual name with an arty, Bohemian feel to the mix. She explained that it was invented by her father, saying it came about as a combination of her infant brother's pronunciation of the word moon as 'nuna' and a character in a book her father was reading, Prince Djalma, and so he "put the Dj onto the 'una'." Result: the silent-D pronunciation (as in Django) of JOON-a.

A pretty, dainty name for one of the little characters in the children's book series The Borrowers. It was the basis for a later Studio Ghible animated film, The Secret World of Arrietty. While the connection to Harriet is tenuous, you might want to consider Arrietty as an honorific for an ancestral Harriet, Harry, or even Henry or Henrietta.