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I went to high school with a Rossi, Enzo and a Giovanna..3 siblings whose parents immigrated from Italy to S. Florida in the 60s.. They were the 1st generation born in the US in their family. The kids spoke a bit of Italian IIRC. I wonder how they named their kids.. I've worked w/ people who had unusual names, and not names that would be considered 'ethnic'.. like a Jhonathn.. spelled like that, said his parents were non-conformist and wanted a non-standard spelling for his name.. also went to high school with a guy named Sky Rockett. Then there were people whose names seemed unfortunate...like a Richard Head (just like the actor)...hated being called Dick. We shared an office in grad school. Also worked with a Vincen... don't know what happened to the 'T' at the end. As far as naming babies, there has been a trend in the last 20 years of names seemingly made-up rather than previously exising--such as lots of names ending in -den (Kayden, Jayden, Chaden, etc). Also names borrowed from series like Game of Thrones seem to be popular.. Maybe people should be forward looking and use names that sound like they are from the future, as Elon Musk did with his kids... why not names like Ae37-XD, a Zdx223-b, Khelbhar, Gzhn, Ztorr, etc..

Congratulations, becoming a parent is an amazing journey and I wish you and your wife all the best for what a rewarding and challenging journey of parenthood will be. Names while many will say go common and US based can still be a beautiful thing to also think of places or trips you and your wife did. I remember a friend who played trumpet with me in jazz band and until now have not thought of her as we drifted apart once our careers took off and we got married, but I will never forget her as her parents named her after a garden they always went to and where he proposed to his wife, the garden was a Rose Garden here in the UW botanical garden. As such Rose grew up to be a great trumpet player and eventually went to college and works in the medical field. Names can mean many things, so do not feel you have to stay mainstream if it is an important meaning to you and your wife.

Can always use the name of a beloved grandmother or aunt.. my folks did that w/ my sister's name (which is still a very common name in the UK but has become quite uncommon in the US).

My wife and I are expecting our first in January and names are where we are completely stumped. We're having a girl but no name we've heard has really stuck out to us yet.

It is interesting to see how names from TV shows are popular in naming babies. I wonder how AI will deal with pronunciation of strange forward looking names as you posted. ? How does one say Ae37-XD or Gzhn??????? Can you imagine the bullying they will get?

I went to high school with a Rossi, Enzo and a Giovanna..3 siblings whose parents immigrated from Italy to S. Florida in the 60s.. They were the 1st generation born in the US in their family. The kids spoke a bit of Italian IIRC. I wonder how they named their kids.. I've worked w/ people who had unusual names, and not names that would be considered 'ethnic'.. like a Jhonathn.. spelled like that, said his parents were non-conformist and wanted a non-standard spelling for his name.. also went to high school with a guy named Sky Rockett. Then there were people whose names seemed unfortunate...like a Richard Head (just like the actor)...hated being called Dick. We shared an office in grad school. Also worked with a Vincen... don't know what happened to the 'T' at the end.

Don't get me started on the lists above. I will come back around to take a swipe at those. One of the things that sort of irritate me is how people name a kid with a foreign first name a few generations down as if to culturally appropriate or channel the culture. I've seen kids with names like Enzo, Giovanni, and several others. These people do not speak Italian, they probably have never been there or their going there is brief, and their connection to the country is tenuous. It's just recent trendy stupidity. Enzo comes from Vincenzo, so name that kid Vincent. And give that Giovanni the name John. (I know I can't tell people what to name their kids.) I find this a little insulting since Italian-Americans went through discrimination up until the last few decades and this is when their parents who had come to North America named them Michael, Joseph, Louis, Mark, and other "normal" names. And it's likely that these types described above were more connected to the culture. So, it's ludicrous that people who are removed from the culture have the foreign names. And it's also these people, who with a great grandfather on one side, clutter the consular channels to get dual citizenship for God knows what. * end of rant *

Becoming a grandparent in March 2024, it has been interesting listening to my son and daughter in-law talk about names for the coming grandson. Names are interesting and parents need to take into consideration the name but also pronunciation. My wife being Korean, English as a second language has a really hard time with R's, L's due to the lack of use in her native language. So as it has come up, some names are harder for my wife to say than others. Typing this I draw a blank on the half a dozen names they told us they are considering, but they did rule out strange names such as how some famous folks have called their kid Apple. Doing a bing search on top 2023 baby names, the Bing search engine returned the following: According to Parade, some of the most unusual baby names for 2023 include: Aero Alaska Ari Ashlynn Aspen Astrid Azure Bear Beckett Birdie Bode Brynlee Cadence Cami Case Caspian Charlize Cheyenne Cora Crew Cyrus Dagon Dahlia Damon Daphne Darra Daxton Dawson You can find more unusual baby names for boys and girls in Parade’s article 1. Another source, The Mummy Bubble, reports that some of the new arrivals to the top 100 most popular baby names include Blake, Brody, Kai, Rupert, Tobias, and Nathan 2. Mumsnet has also compiled a list of 200 unusual and unique baby names for both boys and girls 3. Finally, Fatherly has predicted that the following 20 unusual baby names could dominate 2023: Luxury Aurelia Maeve Eloise Alice Aurora Isla Luna Ophelia Iris Aria Nova Eden Freya Luna Arlo Atticus Theodore Jasper Levi You can read more about these predictions in Fatherly’s article 4.