Ultimate Noun Name Collection

More uncommon and powerful than garden varieties like Rose and Lily. Named for Scottish botanist Dr Alexander Garden.

Common name in Japan, would have alcoholic allusions here.

Originally a unisex nickname for a redhead -- red hair is called "ginger" in Britain -- or for the name Virginia, Ginger perennially wears pink gingham and spike heels.

One of the evocative new nature names with a simple, stylish feel.

Former cool-boy name now in middle-aged limbo, but with a nice naturey meaning to endear it to modern parents.

Grace, a simple and pure virtue name which originally referred to divine grace, is a fashionable classic. In the early 2000s, it seemed headed for the Top 10 but pulled back from the upward trajectory, which you may consider a very good thing.

If you find Grover too fusty and furry, this is a much cooler-sounding alternative.

The kind of nouveau macho name favored by NRA-leaning parents. Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers gave it to his son in 2009. Gunnar is another spelling that makes the name a bit less militaristic.

Hallow is a word meaning sacred or holy. As the root word for Halloween (orginally All Hallows' Eve), this name might be an evocative choice for a baby born on or near October 31st. It could work well for either a boy or a girl and offers the nicknames Hal and Halley.

Halo is a glowing word name that's both cosmic and spiritual, and with its shiny imagery and bright sounds, it was one of the fasted rising names in 2023.

Many virtue names have long been in style or have seen a resurgence in recent years. Happy, however joyous, seems unlikely to join this trend. This could be because it doesn't have a solid history of being popularly used (in comparison to Joy or Hope) and because it's such a familiarly used word in day to day life (unlike Verity or Felicity).

If you like names that are not really names -- some say, the wave of the future -- Harbor has an attractive sound as well as an appealing meaning and image.

Harvest has been occasionally used as a name since the eighteenth century, originally as evenly unisex, but in the US data for last year was starting to lean more female, given to 29 girls and 11 boys. Harvest can be seen as pleasantly archaic, rich and ripe, fitting in with popular baby names like Harper and Harry, and is also a fresh take on names like Autumn and August and one of the best names for autumn babies.

Haven is a recently invented safe-harbor name that appeals to an increasing number of parents who don't want to voyage quite as far as Heaven.

The version with the e at the end relates to novelist Nathaniel, so that may be the one most parents attracted to this unusual name would choose. Hawthorn nudges it toward the nature category: Hawthorn is a type of hedge.

Chance has risen far on the baby-naming charts, but Hazard has a considerably more dangerous edge. It was the middle name of famed US naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry.

Hazel has a pleasantly hazy, brownish-green-eyed, old-fashioned image that more and more parents are choosing to share. Former Old Lady name Hazel reentered the popularity lists in 1998 and now is near the top of the charts.

This flower name was one of the most popular in her class in the seventies and eighties (in the 1989 movie Heathers, every snobby girl in the high school clique bore that name). Now, though still pretty and evocative of the Scottish moors, it has faded in favor of other purplish blooms, having fallen out of the Top 1000 after having been as high as Number 3 in 1975, when it was given to close to 25,000 girls.

Reddish dye that sounds as if it could be a real name — of the outdated, Old World, Yetta-Hedda variety.