Place 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

11 names, very rare — fewer than 25 babies a year, in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Shelly Shelly means a clearing on a ledge, from an English place name — and it has nothing to do with shells, which is the reading most people assume and no source supports.
Girl English 21 in 2025
Kimberley Kimberley is named for a woman — the English place name behind it is Cyneburg's clearing, and Cyneburg was a seventh-century Mercian princess, so the name reaches modern use through her land rather than a man's.
Girl English 21 in 2025
Rhonda Rhonda is a girl's name from a Welsh river valley, and the great spear reading usually given for it is wrong — the Rhondda is named for its own noisiness, not for a weapon.
Girl Welsh 19 in 2025
Chantal Chantal is a girl's name from an Occitan word for a stone or boulder, taken from a French place name — the singing reading everyone gives it comes from the French chanter and is wrong.
Girl French 19 in 2025
Shelley Shelley means a clearing on a ledge, and it has nothing to do with shells — the poet's surname records a patch of high ground in Suffolk or Sussex, not anything from a beach.
Girl English 13 in 2025
Tracey Tracey is a Norman place name, not an Irish one — it comes from Tracy in Normandy, and the warrior reading widely given for it has no basis in the French original at all.
Girl French 19 in 2025
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
Girl Germanic 10 in 2025
Clodagh Clodagh is a girl's name of Irish origin taken from the River Clodiagh in County Tipperary.
Girl Irish 9 in 2025
Lydie Lydie names a kingdom, and that kingdom invented money — Lydia struck the world's first coins in the seventh century BC, and its last king Croesus is still a byword for wealth.
Girl French 7 in 2025
Arran Arran is a boy's name taken from the Scottish island in the Firth of Clyde, whose own name is old enough that its meaning is no longer recoverable.
Boy Scottish 5 in 2025
Covington Covington is an English surname used occasionally as a first name for boys and girls.
Unisex English 6 in 2025

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