Polish names for girls

Alina has been drifting up the US popularity charts since the early 1980s, and now sits in in the Top 200. But Alina's real strength is in its international flexibility: The name ranks highly in a wide range of European, English speaking, and Latin American countries.

Anna has become the dominant form of the Ann family, offering a touch of the international to English speakers and a bit more style than the oversimplified Ann or Anne.

Diana, the tragic British princess, inspired many fashions, but strangely, not one for her name. For us, Diana is a gorgeous and still-underused choice.

This strong yet graceful feminine form of Gabriel is a modern favorite. The double L spelling is given to more than three times as many girls as the Gabriela version.

Helena is one of those classic names that just misses making the US Top 1000 girl names for its entire history, falling off for a single year in 1992. Since then it's been drifting lazily up the charts, and makes a perfect choice if you want a name that both fits in and stands out.

German, Slavic and Scandinavian form of Clara, which is a Top 100 girl name in multiple European countries, including Austria, Croatia, Iceland and Poland.

Laura is a hauntingly evocative perennial, never trendy, never dated, feminine without being fussy, with literary links stretching back to Dante. All this makes Laura a more solid choice than any of its more decorative counterparts and one of the most classic girl names starting with L.

This pet form of Helena and other ena-ending names, long used as an independent name, is attracting notice again as an option both multicultural and simple. Lena was a Top 100 name from 1880 to 1920.

Nina is as multiethnic as you can get: Nina is a common nickname name in Spain and Russia, a Babylonian goddess of the oceans, and an Incan goddess of fire. Here and now, it's a stylish possibility that's been underused. "Weird Al" Yankovic chose this decidedly nonweird name for his daughter.

A classic name with regal elegance--Queen Victoria, like other queens, had Regina appended to her name. She was a Top 100 name in the 1960s.