Gothic Names for Girls

A lovely musical name (remember the old Eric Clapton-Derek & the Dominos song?), Layla's seen a significant surge in popularity, partly partly all names with a double L are stylish, and partly because all the forms of the name push it into the Top 15 for girls.

With the rise of many once-dated leonine names, from Leona to Lionel to Leonora, Leandra is an unusual choice that might be looking at a comeback..

This spelling adds a little more femininity to the neutral Lee. Leigh and sister Lee were quite popular in the 1960s and 1970s among the first cool wave of unisex names for girls, but now have vanished from the Top 1000. The Biblical Leah is preferred.

A "modernization" of Leonora that has suddenly come back on the radar along with the many other Leo names--both male and female. With literary cred via a famous eponymous poem by Edgar Allan Poe (and also in his even more famous The Raven,) Lenore was steadily in the top half of the popularity list until the mid-fifties, falling off in 1973. Cameron Diaz played a Lenore in The Green Hornet.

Roman goddess of childbirth. Levana is one of the lesser-known ancient Roman goddess names and has a somewhat synthetic feel but authentic roots.

Lilah may be a simple spelling variation of Lila—or you might think of it as a shortening of Delilah or an Anglicization of the Hebrew Lilach, which means lilac. Whatever the root, it's a beautiful and stylish name. The final h adds balance or creates needless complications, depending on your viewpoint.

Lilith is derived from the Akkadian word lilitu meaning "of the night." In Jewish folklore she is portrayed as Adam's rejected first wife, who was turned into a night demon for refusing to obey him. Lilith is unrelated to most other Lil- names, with the exception of Lilita, which is the Latvian variation.

Pretty and unusual, Livana may find a lot more fans as parents look for alternatives to Number 1 Olivia. Livana was used for only seven baby girls in the US last year.

The lovely Lorelei, a name from old German legend, was a beautiful Rhine River seductress whose haunting voice led sailors to hazardous rocks that would cause them to be shipwrecked. And this siren image clung to the name for ages.

Disney turned Maleficent into a name in 1959, when it was used for the "Mistress of All Evil" in the film Sleeping Beauty. Prior to that, maleficent was a word meaning "causing harm," the antonym of beneficent. Its similarities to the familiar name Millicent made it an apt choice for the iconic Disney villain.

Early 1980s sitcom (Family Ties) name that has been well used ever since, with an upbeat three-syllable sound and a slightly tomboyish edge.

Mara is the evocative ancient root of Mary, appearing in the Book of Ruth, in which Naomi, devastated after the death of her two sons, says "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara." It's one of the girl names starting with M that both fits in and stands out.

Marcellina is one feminine form of the names derived from the ancient Roman Marcellus. There was a Saint Marcellina who was a 4th century virgin and the only sister of Saint Ambrose.

Medora is a Greek name much less common here than, say, Melanie or Melissa. It has some literary references, including as the beautiful and passionate heroine of Lord Byron's poem The Corsair, and in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, there is a character named Marchioness Melora Manson.

The th sound both softens and complicates this Melanie relative.