You want to pick a unique baby name. You want your child to stand out from the crowd, and to have an advantage at school and in the workplace. What name will teachers and coworkers remember: John or Johannes? Sometimes choosing a unique baby name is as simple as picking one of your favourite names in another language.
Many celebrities choose odd and interesting baby names. If you are looking for a unique baby name, why not take the approach of Erykah Badu and name your baby after an animal? Badu’s daughter is Puma. Other animal names to consider include Cat (short for Ekaterina, Catherine, Catellan and many others), Lark, Dragonfly, and more.
Nicolas Cage has always been a devoted fan of comic books (he chose his own last name based on the comic book superhero Luke Cage), and so he picked a distinct celebrity baby name, that is a unique baby name even among the odd names in Hollywood! Cage’s son is named after Superman’s birth name (he wasn’t called Clark Kent on his home planet): Kal-el. You can take a page from Cage’s book and find a unique baby name by going to your favourite book, poem, or movie. Perhaps you love Coleridge, and might consider Xanadu or Kubla for your child. Perhaps you love Arthurian legends, and have always liked the name Nimue or Uther.
If you choose your unique baby name from a book or other source, it will be a pleasure telling your child who their namesake is and why you chose it. Of course, if this is the case, it also means that you might not want to pick names based entirely on how pretty they sound: Ebenezer will forever be associated in popular culture with Scrooge and misers, thanks to Dickens. Even if you choose a less known name, like Isis (after the Egyptian goddess), be careful that you know what that historical or fictional character is known for!
Another way to choose a unique baby name is to name your child after an object. Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter is Apple, Bruce Willis has a daughter named Scout, Toni Braxton’s son is named Denim. You can choose object-names for a variety of reasons: you might choose a particular baby name because you like the sound of the word, you might choose a baby name because you like the object the word represents, and you might choose a baby name based on a combination of these factors. You could choose to name your child after a common object (like Apple or Camera), or you could choose to name your child after a precious object (like Jade or Amethyst). Crystal names are often unique but can be shortened to a plainer nickname: consider Em for Emerald, Amy for Amethyst, Di for Diamond, and so on.
You’ve considered naming your baby for animals, for objects, for literary or fictional namesakes, and other ideas, yet you might still be pulling a blank. Another way to find a unique baby name is to go back to your family tree and choose century-old names for your child. Older names, like Hazel and Gertrude (Trudy) come back into style every so often. You can be a trendsetter by picking a name that you associate with an older generation and making it new for your baby. You can revitalize names by changing their spelling if you want. Another great way to find a new name is to take your mother’s maiden name or your grandmother’s maiden name and see if it sounds good as a first name. Many last names can double as first names: Spencer, Carter, Jackson. The more innovative a last name you choose to adopt for your baby’s first name, the more unique your baby’s name will be. Some unconventional last names that would translate well to first names are Moore, Willis, Ford, Fitzgerald, Bach, and others.
Good luck discovering and creating a unique baby name for your child!
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