Indian names

Nathan is an Old Testament name that's ranked among the Top 100 names for boys for 50 years, and could well stay there for another 50. Strong, solid, and attractive, It's a name familiar to every schoolchild through Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War spy.

Would fit right in with the currently popular in/an/en/on-ending boys' names.

Hip-swayingly evocative.

Pretty name that hit the popularity charts in England in the late 1990s.

A name rich in Hindu tradition as the alternate name for the Goddess Lakshmi, the embodiment of beauty and charm; currently borne, appropriately, by model-actress-writer Padma Lakshmi.

Known here via the son of Indira Gandhi, who himself became prime minister of India.

From India, but feels like an Irish surname (and can in fact be a variation of Rowan), so a possible cross-cultural choice.

Shreya is an Indian name with several positive meanings--beautiful, fortunate, auspicious, favorable--and ties to the goddess Lakshmi.

Early European import, well known in the 1940s via Norwegian skating movie star Sonja Henie, that has sailed back across the Atlantic, despite the rising popularity of other Russian names.