Unique and Elegant Baby Names

Claude is a soft-spoken French name that conjures up the pastel colors of Monet and harmonies of Debussy. In France, it is used for girls as well, in fact in the Tracy Chevalier novel Lady and the Unicorn, the protagonist is a female Claude.

Cordelia is exactly the kind of old-fashioned, grown-up name for girls that many parents are seeking for their daughters today. The name of King Lear's one sympathetic daughter, Cordelia has both style and substance along with its Shakespearean pedigree.

Corisande is a very unusual, haunting choice, with the aura of medieval romance--it is found in early Spanish romantic tales, arriving in the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century.

Corymbia is the botanical name of many species of beautiful flowering gum trees. It is a rare, but attested, girls name in Australia.

Cressida is a pretty mythological and Shakespearean heroine name much better known in Britain than it is here — an imbalance the adventurous baby namer might want to correct.

Cullen is an appealing Irish surname name that upped its cool factor considerably when it became the Twilight family name of Edward et al. It's considerably less popular than it was at its peak in 2010, but is still widely used.

The title of a Shakespeare play based on legends featuring the early Celtic King Cunobelinus, whose name derives from the Gaulish sun god Belenus.

Cyrilla is an obscure feminization of Cyril that's a bit buttoned-up but also intriguingly unique, with an authentic pedigree. Spelling Cirilla is more visible thanks to The Witcher series, in which its the name of the heroine Princess Cirilla, nicknamed Ciri. 40 baby girls were named Cirilla in the US in 2021, vs. only 10 called Cyrilla.

The name of the protagonist of a trio of novels by French author Alexandre Dumas, most notably The Three Musketeers. D’Artagnan is an aspiring musketeer who travels to Paris in search of fortune and adventure. The character is based on real-life musketeer Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d’Artagnan. Artagnan is a small village in southwest France.

David plus Damian (or David plus Ian or David plus Darrian) equals this hybrid name. It has been in and out of the US Top 1000 since 2004, though both this spelling and alternative Davion were out of favor in 2023. Davian Clarke is a Jamaican Olympic athlete.

Eamon is one of the traditional Irish names that has not yet emigrated to the US. This Irish name pronounced ay-mon was popularized by early president of the independent republic Eamon de Valera (birth name George), who was born in the United States to an Irish mother and a Cuban father. Eamon definitely has possibilities as a successor to the epidemically popular Aidan/Aiden.

This name for the sweetbriar shrub is a bit too reminiscent of eggplant.

Rarely used in the last two centuries, but might be worth dusting off and holding up to the light.

If you're looking for a Welsh name less common than Dylan, Griffin, Evan, or Morgan, you might want to consider this offbeat epithet of the wise wizard Merlin.

Root name Ambrose is an ancient saints' name derived from the Greek ambrosia, the food and drink of the gods that conferred immortality.

The Welsh name Enfys is a unisex name, although it is more commonly used as a feminine name. It is rare even in the United Kingdom, used on only a handful of children each year.

The name of the Greek winged god of sexual love may seem a lot to live up to, but like other deity names, it's on the rise. He appears in DC comics as an ally of Wonder Woman, and is the alias of Marvel's Starfox character. Eros is also the name of an asteroid in our solar system. The name is more popular in Italy, where it's been in the Top 200 in recent years,

Ancient martyr's name that, though not especially appealing, might still be mildly possible, especially for Anglophiles. It was widely used in early Scotland, but was overtaken by its nickname, Effie.