The Art of Naming

When you take a moment and travel back in time within the realm of baby names and compare your findings to today's data, you'll see that boy names don't change nearly as much as girl names do. Males have certain evergreen names that seem to always be in use. Many of them happen to be biblical which is the most obvious reason for their consistency but it is a different story for females. The most evergreen name for girls is Elizabeth . Biblical, classic, versatile. Sure there are a few others. Mary had a record breaking reign unlike any other name, but for the most part, girl names swing in and out of fashion frequently. Some names that were popular even ten years ago are already losing steam. Is it any different for names of the 1880s? Are they still out or are many of them back in now? A bit of both. While many of the more fashionable grandma names are increasingly being labeled as vintage and are rapidly climbing the charts, many of their stuffy counterparts are...

Many of today's most-popular boy names have actually been rather popular for decades. The same few traditional choices have stuck around and lasted the test of time moreso than many of the popular female names have. While looking at the Top 200 Names of the 1880s via the Social Security Administration's data , it is no surprise that the hottest names of the decade include John, William, James, George, and Charles. While John, George and Charles have declined in usage, James and William still dominate the modern charts. How many interesting names from the 1880s could be revived and given to modern boys? In order to find these names, we will need to skip over the evergreen names that are still ranking well in 2014. We aren't interested in those right now. We want to find the names that have fallen from favor, names like Clarence or Earnest that were once well-used. Sticking to the collective data from the entire decade, we will take a closer look at 10 of those names ...

The name Xanthe is brought to you today in honor of a previous article featuring The Very Best X Names for Boys and Girls. This name is Greek and is derived from ξανθος (xanthos) meaning "golden, yellow" or "fair hair". While this is a very beautiful name, there can be some annoying pronunciation issues that go along with it. Fortunately, the overwhelming consensus that I've found among typical English speakers is that they pronounce it ZAN-thee . ZAN-tha is another possibility. Some claim that it is pronounced more like ZAN-they or KSAN-thee. If you'd like to read a discussion about it, click here. For the purposes of this article, I will be assuming the pronunciation ZAN-thee. Xanthe is a name used twice on the planet Mars. Once for the Xanthe Montes which is a mountain range, and once for a region referred to as Xanthe Terra. Additionally, there is an asteroid called 411 Xanthe. There were also a few minor mythological characters with this nam...

We have covered the letter X before on The Art of Naming. We pondered some "Xcellent" underused names for boys and girls . We also listed out names for boys that contain the letter X , as well as a list for girl names with an X in them.  This letter typically gives names an edge. They tend to be rather bold and interesting. Today we'll look at some of the very best names that start with X. I handpicked 25 for each gender for a total of 50 awesome names. Is X your favorite letter? Are you looking for something unusual, unique and interesting? This list is for you! Xabrina Xalvadora Xandra Xantara Xanthe Xanthippe Xaria Xavienna Xaviera Xavierre Xena Xenaida Xenia Xenobia Xeraphina Xevera Xeveria Xia Xiamara Ximena Xiomara Xochitl Xola Xolani Xylia Xachary Xadrian Xaime Xalvador Xan Xanadu Xander Xannon Xanthos Xanthus Xanto Xarles Xavian Xaviell Xavier Xavion Xenon Xenos Xerxes Xhaiden Ximenes Xola Xuan X...

When it comes to earthy boy names, some of the coolest ones are related to rock and stone. There are some names that mean rock such as the Scottish surname Carrick from the  Gaelic Carraig.  The name Peter means "stone" and so does all of its variants and translations such as the French Pierre , the Spanish Pedro, and others such as Piers, Pierce, Pierson, Piet and Pietro.   If it's a down-to-earth name you want, the list below features a few more names with rocky and earthy meanings: Cephas Clayton Cole Craig Dunstan Ebenezer Haldor Halle Halstein Halvard Harlow Hermes Leofstan Malachite Mason Seneca Stanford Stanley Terran Torsten Winston Wystan "rock" "clay settlement" "charcoal" "crag, rock" "dark stone" "stone of help" "Thor's rock" "rock" "rock, stone" "rock guardian" "rock hill" "piles of stones" ...

Water is everywhere. We use it for countless reasons every day. Heck, we're made of water. It is essential to life as we know it. What better way to honor our precious life-sustaining water than to choose a name inspired by it? Plenty of parents are already fans of nature names, why not filter those down to just the water-related ones? You'll find that you have many great options to choose from. Before we dive into the deep end, let's explore a bit of mythology. The God of the Sea is known as Poseidon in Greek mythology. One of his love interests was the Sea Goddess Amphitrite . Together they had a son named Triton who was the Messenger of the Sea.  The Roman equivalent of Poseidon is Neptune , the God of Freshwater and the Sea. Here are some of the best names inspired by water: Bodies of water that could be used as names: Bay Bayou Brook Cascade Cove Delta Fjord Frost Harbor Icy Laguna Lake Marsh Ocean Rain River Snow Names of falls...

This featured name is brought to you by the letter W and  the very best W names for boys and girls . We recently talked about how one of the biggest boy name trends is to use surnames as first names . As an English surname, Wesley is no exception. It fits right in with other surname names for boys. As a name, Wesley could be considered more on the gentle side of boy names. This could be partly because many of the other -ley names are rather unisex like Bailey or conquered by the girls like Ashley. However, there are many who also consider Wesley to be a tough guy name due to pop culture associations such as actor Wesley Snipes. Another major association is John Wesley, an 18th century theologian who founded the evangelical movement known as Methodism. Wesley  is short for "Wesleydale" which is Anglo-Norman in origin. The "wes" part refers to the direction "west" while "lea" is an open grassy area. Therefore, Wesley refers to a wester...