The Least Popular Baby Names of the Last Year Are Actually Pretty Awesome

All around the world parents are looking for unique baby names that will mark their one-of-a-kind babies as complete individuals. Unfortunately, most people aren’t all that creative, so instead of actually unique baby names we just wind up with 4,000 children named Neveah or Abcde and a lot of angry parents complaining on web forums that someone “stole” their baby names. But it turns out that a lot of really nice baby names are going totally unclaimed in the U.S., because the Social Security Administration released its full list of baby names recorded in 2016, and a lot of really good ones weren’t on it.

Basically how this works is that the baby name site Nameberry took the SSA’s list of baby names and ran it against Nameberry’s exhaustive list of baby names. All the names that did not appear on both lists comprise a pretty great selection of names that nobody thought to use last year. And a lot of them are lovely!

Look at some of these names from Nameberry that nobody used in 2016.

unique baby names girls
Nameberry

Yes, in a year in which babies were named Hollow Point, Raygun, and required judicial intervention to avoid being called Cyanide, nobody at all wanted to name their kids Perdita, Daffodil, or Marcellina.

Some of the names are pretty surprising. Nobody in the U.S. in 2016 was named Araminta? But there are a lot of those in the U.K., and you could call her Minty! And somehow nobody picked Melisande, even though it’s got a pretty close Game of Thrones connection and everything. And is there really not some Kirk Cameron-loving, “there’s no X in Christ!” soldier of God out there that wanted to name his daughter Christmas just to get back at Starbucks? I’m honestly shocked.

Sure, these names are pretty unusual. But they’re unusual without being crackpot names like KVIIIlyn (pronounced “Kaitlyn.” Because VIII is the Roman numeral for “eight.” That really  happened.)

The boys has a bunch of surprises, too:

unique baby names for boys
Nameberry

There were  no U.S. boys named Moe in 2016. Honestly, that’s probably best. The Simpsons has pretty much ruined the name “Moe” forever. But there are no Raouls? No Umbertos? No Kassians? (That last one is probably going to change in 2017, thanks to Star Wars: Rogue One. If stupid emo Kylo Ren gets babies named after him, Cassian the ridiculously hot sneaky dude deserves a whole bunch of babies.)

The biggest surprise, though, is that the list claims there were no boys named Night, Rancher, Scorpio, or Spike in 2016, and honestly I find that a little difficult to believe. It seems like someone out there would be dying to name a baby boy Scorpio Night Renegade, and then call him Spike for short.

Check out the full list of unique baby names over on Nameberry.

Are any of your favorites on the list? Let us know in the comments.

(Image: iStockPhoto / adrian825)

Similar Posts