Remember Kristen, the mom who was suffering from Baby Name Desensitization Disorder and just couldn’t settle on a name for the little brother she was expecting for Colette and Weston?  Well, her problem turned out not to be BNDD or even Boy Name Ambivalence but something much more dramatic.  We’ll...

　　On a recent trip through the South, I met two young sisters charmingly named Mason and Ellis.  Surname-names for girls are characteristic of the traditional South, where family last names have long been passed down as firsts to girls as well as boys. 　　Little girls might well have a conventional...

　　Name lover Kristin Alexander, creator of the blog What She Said, went crazy over baby girl names.  Her story: 　　“BRAHNwyn!” he said incredulously. “BRAHNwyn?” 　　“Well, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound very pretty,” I pouted. 　　Granted, Bronwyn was a guilty pleasure. I didn’t really expect my husband...

　　Today being National Aunts and Uncles Day (who knew, right?), here’s a shout-out to some of the most memorable aunts in both literature and pop culture– the sweet and the sour, the doting and the demanding, the over-indulgent and the overbearing—with, in literature at least, the unfortunate majority being the...

　　Maybe because Nameberry attracts such serious name lovers, many visitors to the site can’t settle for choosing just one name for their babies. 　　I’m not talking about the trend toward picking two middle names but about the taste for baby girl names that have two very different versions: a classic,...

　　With a number of classic names taking a downward turn these days, it’s nice to see that a few are going in the other direction—William, James, Charlotte –and one that we’re especially happy to see making a return: our featured name of the day, Alice. 　　Alice is unique among the...

　　Hear the words ‘detective’ or ‘private eye,’ and you probably picture a tough guy like Mickey Spillane or a cooler customer like Sam Spade.  But it turns out that mystery fiction also features a lot more female sleuths than you might think, dating back to Loveday Brooke in the 1890s...

　　It’s pretty obvious that some popular names start a daisy chain of cousins that become equally popular, as was seen most recently in the progression of a group of top girls’ names beginning with E.  First there was Emily, which was the Number 1 name from 1996 to 2007.  One...

　　Some pretty girl names–and a couple of attractive boys’ too–are highlighted by Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel for this week’s The Nameberry 9. 　　It was a good week for gorgeous girl names. From current favorites to up and coming possibilities, pop culture gave us a quartet of new daughters with noteworthy...

　　Around this time every year, we peek behind the Nameberry curtain to see which names are the most popular with our visitors.  This Top 100 for each gender, which reflects views of the name pages on our site, indicates which names have captured the most interest since the start of...

　　In the Nameberry 9 this week, Appellation Mountain‘s  Abby Sandel takes on one of the world’s longest celebrity baby names,  Rosalind A. A. A. F. Thurman-Busson aka Luna. 　　As summer slipped into fall, I was convinced we’d never learn the name of Uma Thurman’s new daughter.  And then suddenly, there...

　　Abby Sandel of Appellation Mountain focuses this week on some bold and daringly unusual girls’ names that made baby name news. 　　Some weeks I’m astonished by the range of names we can choose for girls. 　　We love our children regardless of gender, but when it comes to talking baby names, many of...

　　Our tally of the 100 most popular girls’ names of 2012 on Nameberry is in, and we have a new Number 1: Katniss. 　　The predominance of Katniss is more a testament to the power of the Hunger Games franchise than to baby name trends. 　　Our Number 2 girls’ name Charlotte,...