How I Met Your Mother Names

A sweet Scottish short form of Alexander which is feeling newly appealing now the era of Sandra is far behind us. Sandy would also work well as a nickname for a child with pale red or dark blond hair.

Irish place-name -- it's a river, a town, and an airport -- once popular but now supplanted by such newer immigrants as Saoirse and Seanan.

A key cheerleader in the nickname game of the 1970s, Stacy is now the mom. Consider Stacia, or the original Anastasia.

Stella is a name with star quality and sparkle, that manages to sound both ethereal and earthy. Celestial but not otherworldly, it lands somewhere between the popular Ella and bold Seraphina.

Like Ed, Eddie and Teddy, Ted is rarely used as an independent name – in the US, at least. In the UK, Eddie ranks just outside the Top 200, Teddy ranks just outside the Top 30, and Ted is a Top 200 pick.

With Theodore rising, Ted may have new life among parents who don't want to use the short form Theo. And TV's Ted Lasso makes it a quintessential nice guy name.

As unlikely as it may seem, Theodore is a hot new hit name, vaulting into the Top 10 in 2021 for the first time ever and rising three more points last year to rank at Number 7.

In the Top 25 in the unisex seventies, these days Tracy would more likely be Gracie.

Innocent, sincere, and bright-eyed, and as outdated as its mother name, Gertrude.

This short form of classic Victor is popular in its own right in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Victoria is the Latin word for "victory" and a feminine form of Victor. It is the name of the ancient Roman goddess of victory, the equivalent of the Greek Nike, and also a popular third century saint.

Vince is not a short form that often stands alone on the birth certificate, the way Jack or even Joe does, but it has certain credibility as the name always used for football great Vince Lombardi. And as a diminutive for Vincent, it's a far sight better than Vinnie or Vinny or even Vin.

Virginia is a lovely place name starting with the fashionable V and having deep historical roots, yet, unlike some other other girls' classics, has been sorely neglected in recent years.

It is popularly claimed that the name Wendy was invented by Sir James Barrie in 1904 for the big sister character in his play Peter Pan, which was followed by the classic novel in 1911. Barrie supposedly took it from the nickname "fwendy-wendy", that he was called by a young girl acquaintance.