Girl Names

A sweet, uplifting and still fairly uncommon modern virtue name. Its single syllable makes it especially good as a middle name, but it would also make a big impact in the first spot.

One of the loveliest of the Welsh names, striking the perfect balance between being familiar and unusual. In Wales, the female spelling is always Bronwen, but Americans usually see a "y" as adding femininity.

The Scottish Eileen was a midcentury darling that was on a long downward slide for decades. And then, in 2012, it took an unexpected pivot and has been inching upward in the US. The unrelated but similar-sounding Isla may have revived the taste for Eileen. Isla along with Lee and Lena might be nicknames for Eileen. Eileen is an Anglicized form of the Gaelic Eibhlin or Aibhilin, which is technically a form of to Evelyn/Aveline, but is also sometimes considered part of the Helen family of names. Aileen is the Irish version, less popular now than Eileen.

Lillian has ranked among the US Top 50 for the past 20 years, making it Lily's less popular but more grownup cousin.

Scottish Marjorie and her English twin Margery were early twentieth century favorites that date back to medieval times, when it was popular among the royals. They were at their height in the 1920s, when they were seen as more lively versions of the old standard. Marjorie was always the preferred spelling, in the Top 25 from 1920 to 1927.

Ada, yes. Ida, maybe. But Oda, a Scandinavian version of Odelia, not really. To English speakers, it sounds too much like "odor".

Ottilie is trending in the UK, where the pronounced T helps the name sound pretty and delicate, rather like Amelie and Elodie. Ottilie is less popular in the US, where many Americans pronounce it as a near-homonym for "oddly".

Curiously appealing, in a hoop-skirted, wasp-waisted way, Ottoline has recently entered the realm of modern possibility, especially since Sienna Miller chose it as the middle name of her daughter Marlowe.