Place Names Names

Names taken from somewhere on a map. The place usually got its own name from a person, a landscape feature or a language nobody there speaks any more, so the meaning is two removes away.

Rankings for

10 names, rare — 25 to 99 a year, in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
Boy English 94 in 2025
Irving Irving names a Scottish river valley, and it reached American use largely through one writer — Washington Irving, who gave English both Rip Van Winkle and the nickname Gotham for New York.
Boy Scottish 90 in 2025
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
Boy English 82 in 2025
Irvin Irvin names a Scottish river valley, and the green water reading describes the water rather than the banks — Brittonic river names usually record color or behavior, not the land beside them.
Boy Scottish 80 in 2025
Kerry Kerry is 53 percent female in our records — the fourth-closest to an even split on this site, behind only Emerson, Riley and Jackie.
Unisex Irish 77 in 2025
Iona Iona is a girl's name taken from the Hebridean island where Columba founded his monastery — and the island's name exists because a medieval scribe misread a letter.
Girl Scottish 65 in 2025
Carlton Carlton means the settlement of the free peasants, and the word for those peasants became an insult — ceorl gave English churl and churlish, so the name preserves a class that the language later turned against.
Boy English 43 in 2025
Rochelle Rochelle means little rock, and it is a place rather than a person — La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast was a Huguenot stronghold, and the name reached English through the town rather than any saint.
Girl French 30 in 2025
Lesley Lesley is the Scottish spelling and Scotland proves it — a peak of 341 births there in 1974, far above what the country's size would predict against an American high of 981.
Unisex Scottish 30 in 2025
Brittney Brittney means from Brittany, and Brittany means from Britain — so the name records Britons who fled to France, making it a British name that came home by way of Normandy and a respelling.
Girl American 25 in 2025

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A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

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