The other night, I invented a name in my sleep.
Just a *typical namenerd dream*: I run into a former high school teacher who tells me he’s welcomed his second child, another daughter — Lillamina.
Of course, I ran the stats as soon as I woke up. Lillamina has never been recorded as a name in the American data.
But it could totally work, right? A combination of Lily and Wilhelmina (or maybe Willamina). Lillamina feels like it should be a name, even though it’s not — yet.
As for my former teacher, I doubt he ever used the name — his oldest daughter is named Lily (that’s too close to comfort, in my opinion).
If you like Lillamina, it’s yours for the taking. Who knows? Maybe I’ll start a trend.
Nameberry’s Top Names of 2023 (so far)
Speaking of starting trends — I am the one responsible for the fact that Luxury is the new Number 1 girl name on Nameberry.
I tipped it off for our feature on the top names to watch in 2023 and beyond, and Luxury has attracted a lot of attention since then.
Now, this isn’t going to translate into thousands of baby girls named Luxury — at least not yet. When the 2022 data comes out (only one more month!), I expect to see a few more baby girls named Luxury, but this name needs years before it’ll really take off.
For now, Luxury is a polarizing choice that everyone is curious about.
Other dramatic names rose into our Top 100 this year — Abcde, Kamakanaalohamaikalani — again driven by people’s curiosity rather than actually considering them for babies.
But for the most part, the names in our Top 100 end up rising nationally as well. According to our stats, you can expect more babies named Elowen, Kylian, Ayra, and Callum in 2023.
Random Name Generator
Need a random name? (Don’t worry — we won’t ask why). Put our random name generator to the test!
I took it three times and these were my results:
Ivy Edith Levi
Esmeralda Dua Ledger
Sophia Louise Magee — my legal first + middle name, with a different surname. Does this name generator know something I don’t?
More Fun Things
Happy Passover! Celebrate with some Modern Jewish Names ✡️
Of course, we can’t forget about Easter Names, either 🐰
European boy names, from Achille to Zoltan 🌍
I just shared that I am expecting our fourth child on our Parenting Translator newsletter so I will definitely be reading about names on Namebery!