Girls

If you're looking for a fresher belle name than Isabelle, Mirabelle is lovely, and we also like the extra flourish of Mirabella. And if you want a nature tie, Mirabelle is also the name of a delicate French plum.

With its relation to Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods, and to the Olympic games, this name has an athletic, goddess-like aura, making it the perfect Olivia substitute.

Patience is a passive virtue turned engaging name, fresher than Hope, Faith, or even Charity. Its resemblance to the trendy Payton may be one reason that it returned to the US charts back in the 90's and 2000s, having been absent for a century.

Persephone is the esoteric name of the Greek mythological daughter of Zeus by Demeter, the queen of the harvest. After she was kidnapped by Hades to be Queen of the Underworld, it was decreed by Zeus that she would spend six months of the year with her mother, allowing crops to grow, and six in mourning, thus accounting for the seasons.

Strong and solid, with a touch of foreign intrigue, it's the most popular of the rain-related names, with a variety of pronunciations—RAY-na, rah-EE-na, or RY-na. Alternate spellings Reyna and Rayna currently rank higher in the US.

Most of us had never heard this lovely Welsh name with links to the moon until we heard the 1976 smash hit Fleetwood Mac song of that name, with lyrics by Stevie Nicks. That same year it popped onto the U.S. Top 1000 at Number 593.

Possibly started life as a short form of Rhonwen, but most likely derives from the name of the Hebridean island Rona, which means "rough island".

Rosalie hit its apex in 1938 and then slid straight downhill until it fell off the U.S. Top 1000 completely in the 1980s, only to spring back to life in 2009 as the name of a character in the Twilight series. The beautiful vampire Rosalie Hale has breathed fresh life back into this mid-century name, and the fact that the character is both sympathetic and relatively minor means Rosalie has the chance to thrive again as a baby name without feeling unduly tied to Twilight.

A fabled storybook name via the heroine of Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe (1819), which featured a heroine called Rowena of Hargottstanstede, and also a Harry Potter name, as Rowena Ravenclaw, founder of one of the Hogwarts houses..

Term for a native-born Israeli, first brought to notice in Edna Ferber's 1929 novel Cimarron. Prickly pear has neen interpreted to mean tough on the outside, soft and sweet within.

Sage is an evocatively fragrant herbal name that also connotes wisdom, giving it a double advantage. It entered the Top 1000 at about the same time for both genders in the early 1990s, but it has pulled ahead for the girls. Toni Collette named her daughter Sage Florence.

Seraphina is one of the most-searched name on Nameberry, destined for even greater popularity. The highest-ranking angels, the six-winged seraphim, inspired the lovely name Seraphina.

This original form of the name -- the more familiar Sylvia spelling came later -- seems more modern now.

With related choices such as Lark and Phoenix gaining popularity, why not Sparrow? Though it's usually thought of as a female name, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden chose it for their son.

Unusual choice that was the original name of children's illustrator Tasha Tudor, but is an interesting elaboration of Star, taking it into avian territory.

The image of the lovely Lady Sybil, tragic youngest daughter of the Crawley family on Downton Abbey is likely to go a long way towards reviving this almost forgotten name, off the list since 1966 and most popular in the 1920s and '30s.

Sleek, woodsy European choice.

Although Sylvia seems to be having somewhat of a revival among trendsetting baby namers, we'd still opt for the even gentler and more unusual Sylvie. Despite being dated in its native France (where it was popular during the 1950s and 60s), in English-speaking regions it still feels fresh and international without being unfamiliar and has a cosmopolitan, international air. It debuted on the US Top 1000 in 2016.