If you don't want your baby to be the third "Matthew" in class, use this list of weird names as your guide to choosing something more hip and trendy to call your baby boy or girl.
Veer
When it comes to baby names, the highest ranking names on the Social Security Administration's list each year tend to be the usual suspects. While occasionally a Nevaeh or a Jayden joins the ranks, you can expect to see the classics—William and Elizabeth, Benjamin and Emma—year after year. But it really gets interesting when you look beyond the top 1,000 list in the baby name data and delve into the strange world of below-the-radar baby names. Mixed in with the creative spellings of traditional names—Paytyn, Sophiya, Ezekyel, and Khrystopher—you'll find some, ahem, unique baby name choices. Check out the wild and unusual names that some kids were recently given.
Questionable Word Names
Some names may be offbeat but still pretty decent—names like Happy, Wise, Famous, Beauty, Celestial, Success, and Divinity. But then there are the names that have a pretty negative connotation: Wraith, Furious, Trigger, Nemesis, Minor, Shy, and Danger. And even some alcoholic baby names: Shiraz, Chardonnay, Gin, and Syrah. Some boys were even named, Unnamed.
Pop Culture Passionistas
Yeah, we like Game of Thrones and Star Wars, too. But should your kid really end up with a name taken from them? From Harry Potter, you'll find Severus, Draco, and Bellatrix. Lord of the Rings fans picked Samwise, Arwen, Eowyn, and Theoden. Star Wars fans like Lando, while Katniss, Primrose, Gale, and Effie came from the Hunger Games. And Game of Thrones fans picked Tyrion, Theon, Sansa, Khaleesi, Daenarys, Stark, and Shae.
Get Them Spell-Check!
Maybe the weird spelling was intentional, but we prefer these names with the proper spelling: Zeppelin (misspelled Zepplin or Zeplin), Romeo (Romio), Treasure (Trejure), Chosen (Chozen), Temperance (Temprince), Pharaoh (Pharoh), Moxie (Moxxi), Miracle (Mircale), Dynasty (Dynastee, Dynastie, or Dynesty) and Captain (Kaptain). And, inexplicably, there's the odd Xzayvian, which seemed like an attempt to squeeze as many consonants as possible into one name.
Kooky Combo Names
Several parents seemed to want to ensure that their kids got a royal title in their name—so they smushed together a title and a name. That's how we got Sirjames, Siranthony, and Kingjosiah. But there were a few other odd combos—like Jesusangel and the Beatles homage Pennylane.
Branding Your Kid
Talk about brand loyalty! There were kids named after cars: Subaru, Lexus, Infiniti, Audi, and Porsche. And then there were kids with other brand names: Armani, Dasani, Dior, and Chanel.
- Related: Best Old-Fashioned Names For Girls
Weird Takeoffs on Trends
Nevaeh was a recently dreamed-up name (it's Heaven backward, if you haven't run across it). But now that it's an in-vogue name, there are weird variations: Levaeh, Deveah, and Kaveah. (Is "Heavel" an idea you want for your kiddo?)
Off-the-Beaten-Path Place Names
Austin and Brooklyn may top the places people want to name their kids after, but there are some pretty cool locales that you don't hear very much. Boys got names like Tokyo and Nazareth; girls were named Sierraleone, Syria, Arabia, and Zealand.
In Homage Baby Names
Move over, Lincoln and Kennedy—people picked some new folks to honor, including Kubrick (for film director Stanley Kubrick), Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin), Vedder (Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder), Romney (í la former Presidential candidate Mitt), Lenin (as in the former leader of Communist Russia, Vladimir Lenin), and Jetli, a compound version of Hong Kong film star Jet Li.
