Names by Style

You usually know the feeling of a name before you know the name itself. One person in the family says old-fashioned and pictures something Victorian, another says it and means the old man names for boys, and whoever is painting the nursery has been quietly lobbying for nature and hippie sounds. Style is the vocabulary that ends that argument, and it pays to get specific, because vintage, elegant, posh and royal pull in four different directions once you put real names under each label.

Some styles sort by feeling: cute, strong, badass, edgy, mysterious, smart. Some sort by source, which is where biblical and saint names sit alongside mythical and fantasy picks, anime names, cowboy and southern names. Some sort by shape, and that is the practical end of the question, 225 one-syllable names for girls and 275 for boys, against 385 unusual girl names and 555 unusual boy names if you want the opposite. Unisex and gender-neutral names, 441 and 180 deep, are usually a decision made before any style label gets applied at all. And for proof that taste has legal limits somewhere, 101 baby names are banned in one country or another.