Names For Your Little Traveler

Ariel is a male Biblical name, seen there as the messenger of Ezra, and also used as a symbolic name for the city of Jerusalem, while Shakespeare used it for a (male) sprite in The Tempest.

Bethany is a lyrical name that still strikes many parents as a fresher, more substantial substitute for the overused Brittany/Brittney or the more antiquated Beth.

Unseen in the USA since 1901, Boston rocketed back into the Top 1000 in 2004 and, like other place-names such as Brooklyn, London and Paris, is now a reliable presence on the list.

Brighton has long been known as a holiday resort town on the south coast of England. A cheery unisex name, it was used for his daughter by Jon Favreau, but was a boy on the TV show The Nanny.

Extreme makeover: Brooklyn has gone from jokey Borough Boy name in the 1990s to a leading girls' name starting with B. The status of New York's Brooklyn as hipster heaven is ironic as few bona fide Brooklyn hipsters would choose this name.

One of the most romantic of appellations, Caspian is a geographical name referring to the large salty sea between Asia and Europe. It's also the name of the hero of C.S. Lewis's beloved Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian.

The name of a courageous tribe, Cheyenne became quite popular in the 1990s, inspiring a wide range of spelling variations—Shyanne is one example that's still on the rise.

A laid-back cowboy name which feels both cool and gentle, Dallas has ranked in the US Top 500 since records began in 1880. Never super popular but surprisingly never out of style, Dallas is given to nearly 1400 boys in the US every year.

Before there was Aspen, Denver was the Colorado city name of choice, and it reentered the US Top 1000 in 2015 after a 14 year absence as a stylish two-syllable boys’ name with its trendy -er ending. Its decade of greatest use was the 1920s, when it reached as high as Number 422.

Eugene is a classic that has rather lost its way. On the one hand, it's a grandpa, even great-grandpa name that hasn't been one of the cool kids recently—or to quote Jim Carrey, who bears this name in the middle spot, "You can never get too cool with a name like Eugene." The hero of Disney's Tangled felt the same way, when he changed his birth name of Eugene to the more romantic Flynn.

This twist on the popular Everett takes it to lofty heights and gives it a geographical and nature-inspired link. The snow-capped Everest could make a name that stands out without feeling too out there, and it may be seen more often in the classroom (that is, outside of the textbooks) in coming years.

Florence is back, returning to the US Top 1000 girl names in 2017 after a nearly 40 year absence. Other English-speaking countries have been quicker to welcome Florence back into fashion.

Unlike its somewhat formal Swiss city namesake, this is a lively and appealing place-name that also has a real history as a female name.

Hudson has risen quickly up the charts over the past 30 years, getting a lot of its style value from New York's Hudson River. That makes it a nature name and a place name that's also got the fashion gloss of New York City.

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.

Though it was used by the Puritans in the sixteenth century, the founding of the modern Jewish state in 1948 transformed Israel from a traditional favorite into an icon of Judaism.

Jordan became one of the top unisex baby names in the heyday of basketball's Michael Jordan, and is still among the most popular unisex names starting with J. The name was originally given to those baptized in holy water brought back by Crusaders from the River Jordan, the only river in Palestine, and the one in which Christ was baptized by John the Baptist.

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

Lincoln cracked the Top 50 for boys' names for the first time in 2016, more than 150 years after the death of its most famous bearer. This is especially remarkable because, as crazy as it seems now, Lincoln was deeply out of fashion as recently as the late 90s, consistently hovering near the bottom of the Top 1000.

The capital of England makes a solid and attractive twenty-first-century choice in the US where it is currently in the Top 1000. Given to nearly 1000 girls and 200 boys each year, it is a unisex option that has been in slow decline since its peak in 2013. Conjuring up images of Big Ben, red phone boxes, and the London Eye for some, but perhaps the rush hour commute and grey skies for others, London is far less popular in the UK and other English-speaking countries.