Wonderful Word Names for Babies

Cool, cruising choice for either sex.

Fanciful, edging toward bizarre.

"Girls Gone Child" blogger Rebecca Woolf made Boheme a first name when she gave it to one of her twin daughters (the other one's name is Reverie). La Boheme -- "The Bohemian" -- is a Puccini opera that was transmogrified into the modern play Rent. Boheme means a literary or artistic person who lives outside conventional society.

A few boys have adopted fabrics like Denim and Suede; here's a singular one for the girls, with a distinctively silky sheen.

Sociable middle name choice with a Quaker feel.

Very occasionally given to boys born on that day; Noel is a more common name for Christmas babies.

The Shakespearean Portia may be a real name, but Porsche is now and forever a car, not a little girl.

In the US this is likely to conjure zebras, lions and elephants on the Serengeti, but its original meaning "journey" broadens its wearability. Safari is a name common in Africa for babies born while their parents were on a journey.

Toni Morrison, the modern master of literary names, made this one famous as the title character of a novel. But things didn't work out so well for that Beloved.

Royalty was the hottest name of 2016, moving furthest up the ladder to enter the Top 1000, and is also arguably the trendiest name of the past decade, used a whopping 71 times as often in 2017 as it was ten years earlier. Royalty represents the convergence of two important trends: word names and superlative names such as Legend and King. This is one we'll hear a lot of for a while.

Spicy.

African-American and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth was born as Isabelle into enslavement. She adopted her new name when she began traveling and preaching abolition in 1843. Sojourner is a heroine name that may, with the rise of spiritual word names such as Journey and Genesis, finally be ready for prime time.

Legend joins cousins Story, Saga and Fable in the baby name pantheon of narrative words. Unlike Story and Fable, however, Legend comes with additional weight, being used for fame ("living legend") and to denote a person who is fantastic "what a legend"). Who can live up to that?

For basketball fans, in honor of Magic Johnson. Or anyone who believes in magic.

This old-time name for a sofa would not be comfortable as a baby name.

A tad spacy.

Smooth and evocative, but not very namelike.

With the rising use of Eugenie and Eulalia, could literary Euphony make a debut? It certainly has a pleasant meaning and is euphonic itself.

As the former stage name of TLC founder Perri Reid and the name of the youngest member of the animated Flintstones clan, it's got some pop culture cache. But it'll be too cutesy by half for most parents.

Believe it or not, this was a fairly common appellation in early New England, interpreted not in the sexual sense, but more in terms of desiring salvation. In modern times, the French name Desiree, pronounced dehz-ih-ray, would be more acceptable.