The Art of Naming

Go ahead and put that baby name book down. Close all of your browser tabs, too. You don't need them anymore!

It's true, you've been hunting for a wonderful name starting with D to honor a few relatives whose names also begin with D, but you haven't found the right one yet. Look no further! This is your list!!

So you're expecting a baby soon. Congratulations! What name will you choose?

 If you're still a bit stumped in that regard, perhaps you'll enjoy this simplified list of ideas.

In this series of posts, I cut out a lot of the work for you. I'm saving you from hours of browsing through endless lists of thousands of baby names.

Here you'll find fifty of the best names that start with the letter C. That's 25 per gender and there's a little bit of something for everyone.

These mostly follow American ideals but they can also work abroad.

As a fan of C names, you'll surely find one that you love. Go on, take a look:

Cadence                        Caitlin Calista Calliope Camille Cara Caroline Cassandra Catherine Cecelia Celeste Celine Charlotte Cheyenne Christina Claire Claudia Clementine Colette Constance Cordelia Corinne Cosette Courtney Cynthia

Caesar Caius Caleb Calvin Cameron Carlton Casper Caspian Chandler Charles Chase Chester Christopher Cillian Clark Clayton Clint Collin Colton Connor Conrad Constantine Cooper Cosimo Cyrus

Isn't it nice to have the best of the best laid out before you? So, which one have you chosen?  If you're still not entirely sure, maybe C isn't the letter for you.  Remember, there are 25 other letters to explore and I'm covering all of them.

When you are in need of an amazing baby name, where do you look? A baby name book? A website with a database full of names? Your family tree? ...A phone book?  All of these options will provide great names, I'm sure, but they may also be a bit overwhelming in size.

A book can be a couple hundred pages long with a few thousand names in it. Baby name databases online could hold 100,000 names or more!  How are you ever supposed to track down the perfect name for your child?

Baby name websites have thousands of names in their databases. This can cause headaches for expecting parents to browse through.

How do you know which will be the perfect name for your little one? How can you sift through the unusual names from foreign cultures that you've never even heard of and don't know how to pronounce? After all, you just want a familiar, traditional name that will work well on a baby today.

The following list contains fifty of the best names that start with the letter A, twenty-five names per gender. The goal was to include something for nearly everyone.

Since I'm based in the US, these names lean more toward current American styles but I'm sure some of these work internationally too. Take a look and let me know which you like best:

Girls: Aaliyah                                    Abigail Adelaide Addison Adriana Ainsley Alana Alexandra Alice Alyssa Amara Amelia Anastasia Annabelle Anne Arabella Aria Ariel Athena Aubrey Audrey Aurora Autumn Ava Avery

Boys: Aaron Abel Achilles Adam Adrian Aiden Alan Alaric Alexander Alistair Amadeus Ambrose Amos Andrew Anthony Apollo Archer Arlo Arthur Asher Atlas Atticus August Austin Axel

Are there any names on the list that you don't think deserve to be on it? Or a name that's missing and should have a spot? If you had to remove one from each list, what would you replace it with?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!