The Master List - S

This is a soft, soignée French girls' namethat has become familiar here via singer Solange Knowles, younger sister of Beyonce.

An attractive French word name known here via former child TV star Soleil Moon Frye, aka Punky Brewster. It started to be lightly used in the U.S. in the 1920s and is now attracting some attention as both a sunny nature and an international word name. It's currently in the Nameberry Top 500.

Solene is a variation of Solange fashionable in recent years in France and a new hit name on Nameberry.

Solomon, a name that evokes wisdom and peace, is an Old Testament name that, along with other patriarchal classics, is finally beginning to shed its long white beard and step from the pages of the Old Testament into modern nurseries.

Solstice graduated from word to official first name when author Lionel Shriver used it for a character in her novel Big Brother. But of course, there were people named Solstice before: 16 baby girls were given the name in the US in 2021 (and it is occasionally used for boys too).

Could there be a more poetic name than Sonnet? Actor Forest Whitaker was inspired to choose it for his daughter.

Sophie is the French form of the Greek Sophia, for which it is also commonly used as a nickname. Given Sophia's long standing among the Top 10 girl names in the US, Sophie may feel more popular than it actually is.

Soraya is a Persian name made famous in the Western world by the one-time empress of Iran, who settled in Europe, primarily in France. Soraya is derived from Thurayya, the Arabic name of the Pleiades, a group of stars in the constellation Taurus.

This gentle Scandinavian name, soft and sensitive, is being discovered in a major way by parents in the US. It's most closely identified with the nineteenth century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, but there have been modern fictional Sorens as well, in The Matrix Reloaded and the book series Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Charlie and Lola, and Underworld.

Sorrel is a gentle, amber-hued herbal and autumnal name that's used most often to describe the color of a horse. Sorrell is a variant spelling. Both make excellent names for autumn babies and can be used for either gender.

Spiritual word names are becoming more and more popular – think Peace, Bodhi, Zen and Psalm – and Spirit is among the rarer options, given to a couple dozen baby girls each year in the US. It's the name of the horse in the kids' TV show Spirit.

Spring doesn't sound half as contemporary as Winter, which has become the cool season name.

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.

An imaginative choice with an uptempo Cory/Rory/Tori sound, perfect for the child of a writer — or anyone with a good story to tell. Story has been finding some appreciation among celebs like Minnie Driver and others as a middle name. This is just one of the literary word names that have recently entered the realm of possibility, such as Fable, Sonnet and Poem.

Suri, a once obscure name, hit the headlines when chosen by Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise for their daughter in 2007. Multi-cultural, it also means "the sun" in Sanskrit, "rose" in Persian, and is the name of the Andean Alpaca's wool, as well as a Yiddish form of Sarah, a title used for Jain monks, and a Japanese word for "pickpocket."

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.