Names for Girls

Beatrice is back. Stored in the attic for almost a century, the lovely Beatrice with its long literary (Shakespeare, Dante) and royal history is being looked at with fresh eyes by parents seeking a classic name with character and lots of upbeat nicknames, like Bea and Bee.

The phonetic Carolyn spelling, which was very popular from the 1920s to the '60s, has been steadily on the wane while Caroline herself has stayed strong.

First-wave Irish name and place name—the poetic name for Ireland—now supplanted by newer alternatives such as Maeve and Delaney.

Now that Lily has become hugely popular, parents in love with this flower name are looking further afield for substitutes such as Liliane and Liliana.

Gone with the Wind inspired a generation of girls named Melanie, though it looks as though Scarlett will triumph in the end.

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.

This Old Testament place name was in the Top 10 fifty years ago, but now Sharon, along with sound-alike Karen, have fallen out of favor.

Violet is soft and sweet, yet with a vivacious edge. Today, Violet is the top flower name for girls, outranking Lily and Iris in the Top 100, and the second most popular color name for girls after Scarlett.

When aspiring British writer Sadie Smith decided to change her name to the more distinctive and zippy Zadie at the age of fourteen, this attention-magnet name was born. But though it might sound like a modern initial-switch, Zadie was actually Number 539 in 1881, remaining in the Top 1000 for almost thirty years.