Most parents don’t start with a blank page. They start with two or three names they half like, a name someone else already used, and a vague feeling (“something classic, but not too common”). The hard part is getting from there to a list worth choosing from.
Here are seven places to look, roughly in the order that works best, and how to turn what you find into a short list.
1. The names you already like
Write down every name you have ever liked, including the ones you have ruled out. Then look for the pattern. Are they mostly short? Do they end in a vowel? Did most of them peak in the same decade? A list like Hazel, June and Mabel says “early twentieth century, soft, two syllables at most” more clearly than any style label.
Each name page on this site shows the name’s curve since 1880, so you can check the era in a few seconds: Hazel and Mabel both peaked in the 1890s, June in the 1920s. If your favourites cluster like that, you have found a seam to dig in.
2. Old birth records
Official records are the most underrated source of ideas. The Social Security Administration has published every name given to at least five American babies, every year since 1880, and every one of those years has its own page here, like the top names of 1990. The top 30 of each decade sit on the decade pages: start with the 1920s or the 1890s.
Names move in long cycles. Many that were everywhere a century ago faded for decades and are now coming back:
- Hazel: given to 6,318 girls in 2025, almost one and a half times as many as ten years earlier. Its peak was in the 1890s.
- Mabel: 1,522 girls in 2025, nearly three times as many as ten years earlier.
- Arthur: 3,847 boys in 2025, about three times as many as ten years earlier. It peaked in the 1880s.
The vintage revival girl names and vintage revival boy names lists collect the names that peaked before 1950 and are rising again.
A good habit: look up the year each of your grandparents was born. Their classmates’ names are often exactly the “classic but not overused” names parents are looking for.
3. Your family tree
Family names carry meaning without asking anything of anyone. Ask parents and grandparents for the full names of great-grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, including middle names and maiden names. Many families have a name that skipped a generation or two and now sounds fresh.
If a family name feels too heavy as a first name, it can live in the middle slot, or in a shorter form: Margaret can become Maisie or Greta, William can become Liam. Our guide to honoring a family member in a baby name covers those options.
4. Names that parents like you also love
Taste is easier to recognise than to describe. Every name page here has a section listing the names that parents who love that name also love, so you can walk from one favourite to the next. Start from your strongest favourite and follow the links two or three steps out; you will quickly see which directions keep pulling you.
The name galaxy does the same thing visually: the whole catalog on one map, with names of similar style placed near each other. Find a name you love and look at its neighbours.
5. Themes and meanings
Some parents start from an idea rather than a sound: nature, a season, a myth, a virtue. Theme lists are a quick way to scan dozens of names at once, for example flower names for girls or names from mythology for boys. Origins work the same way, for instance names of Hebrew origin. The category hub gathers every theme, origin, language and popularity list in one place.
Use themes as a source of candidates, not a rule. A list where every name is a flower can start to feel like a theme park; one botanical name among others usually reads better.
6. Names that travel
If your family speaks two languages, or your child may live abroad one day, look for names that are spelled the same way and sound natural in both. The names that work in French list is one example; there are similar lists for Spanish, Italian, German and more on the category hub. Our guide to names that work in two languages goes further.
7. Rare but recognisable names
If you want a name few classmates will share, the sweet spot is a name people know but rarely give. In 2025, Beatrice was given to 583 American girls, Clementine to 676 and Otis to 422 boys. Everyone can spell and say them; few children carry them. The rare but known girl names list is built on exactly that idea: low births today, but a real history.
For the other direction, the rising girl names list shows what is gaining fast. Margot and Arlo were given more than four times as often in 2025 as ten years earlier. A rising name can be lovely; just know it may be more common by the time your child starts school.
From a long list to a short one
Collect freely for a week or two, both of you separately, without judging. Then cut:
- Strike anything either of you actively dislikes. No arguing at this stage.
- Say each remaining name out loud with your surname. Our guide to testing a baby name has eight quick checks.
- Keep eight to twelve names. That is enough to have real choices and few enough to compare properly.
If you are choosing with a partner, our guide on how to agree on a baby name picks up from here.
Where to start today
If you have a few names in mind, the style quiz reads them, finds what they share and suggests twelve names in the same style, each tried with your surname. If you have none yet, its “This or that” rounds will find a starting point in two minutes.