Names ending in a

One of a legion of Americanized spellings of Aisha, the name of the Prophet Muhammad's favorite wife.

Parvana, also spelled Pərvanə, is an Azerbaijani name related to the Persian word for "butterfly".

The name of a famous Israeli singer, Ofra Haza, but here it would be confused with Oprah.

Mētra is the Latvian word for the mint plant and is seen as both a given name and a surname, although it is rare in both cases.

Kalola certainly cutes up the somewhat dowdy 50s image of the name Carol. Plus it lends itself to the trendy "Lola" as a nickname.

The name America is given to around 100 baby girls each year, mostly within the Hispanic and Latin American communities. The national charts do not record diacritical marks like accents, but at least some of those baby girls spell their names with one. Model América González is among them.

Although it's best known as the name of the fictional kingdom in The Princess Diaries, Genovia has a history of use as a first name dating back before author Meg Cabot was born.

Attractive but somewhat unwieldy place-name name.

The Italian variation of the celestial, 70s-favorite Angela, with a slightly different sound that might make it feel far more distinctive in to American ears.