Girl Names I Adore

X marks the spot in names these days, usually at the middles or ends of names, but here is one that puts it squarely up front.

Zinnia is an unusual floral choice with a bit more edge and energy than most and beginning to find its way onto namers' wish lists of botanical possibilities. Named after an eighteenth German botanist called Johann Gottfried Zinn, it appears in Roald Dahl's Matilda as the young protagonist's mother.