Baby name expert says short and stylish names are the way to go for 2024
Thankfully, for modern parents, there seems to be a consultant for all of life’s challenging moments when it comes to parenting. We have lactation consultants, sleep consultants, potty training consultants, and we even have baby naming consultants for before the baby arrives, which is pretty helpful if you ask me. There’s a family in my son’s elementary school who named their child Sky Miles, and I feel like they may have been a good candidate for a baby-naming consultant. But I’m sure their child will have a leg-up on anyone applying for a job at Delta Airlines when they get older.
If you’re having trouble picking out gender-neutral girl names right now, TikTok’s resident baby naming consultant is back, dropping opinions about gender neutral girl names parents-to-be should stay away from—and names that are great—in 2024. Obviously, you do you, but if you’re looking for a little help in that department, Coleen over at @namingbebe has got you covered.
In a nutshell, Collen believes short and stylish gender-neutral names are the way to go, because they’re timeless and less trendy.
In a TikTok video, she provides a glimpse into a consultation for a family who was having some trouble coming up with a name for their baby. She began by naming the top contenders, and also names to stay away from.
Gender-neutral girl name top contenders included Rowan, Leigh, Cy, Bea, Miller, Eve, Bennett, Emerson, Poppy, Vaughn, Max, and Sloane.
Names from the “top 100” list that parents shouldn’t use if they’re looking for something unique and timeless, according to Coleen, are Olive, Noa, Ryan, and Goldie. For this particular family, Coleen said, “They wanted something more unique and not something in the top 100, and they can’t use Noah, Ryan, or Charlie. They like Goldie, but it’s feeling a little too trendy around them right now,” she said in the clip. “They wanted something with a cool aesthetic, but not too girly. They tend toward gender-neutral names, and wanted it to feel more timeless rather than trendy,” she continued.
Her top contender for a gender-neutral girl name had Celtic roots. “First we have Callan, and I think this is very similar to Rowan on their list, but way less mainstream. It’s a Celtic-inspired boy name with very soft sounds, and I think that works very well with a girl,” she said. The next name was “Ellis,” which she says she loves, and the fact that they can use one-syllable nicknames like Elle is very in line with those “one-syllable, ultra feminine names on their list.”
She mentioned this particular family found symbolism about their baby’s due date and how desired the child was, so she thought a name like Sunny would be fitting because of its brightness and it’s also an “adorable gender-neutral name.”
Other names she mentioned that were top contenders in this consultation included Blake, Lane, Andie, Gray, Logan, Esti, Remi, Campbell, Kit, Wesley, and Luca.
At the end, the family picked a name from their list and her list, and ended up with baby Cy (Sunny). “The meaning of Cy is ‘sun,’ so they’re calling the baby Sunny,” she concluded.
That’s a pretty perfect compromise, combining the emotional, personal factor of choosing a baby name, along with the timeless and unique factors. I wish I had Coleen by my side when picking out our son’s name in 2018. ”Jackson,” to be called “Jack” was apparently the top name for his age group, but we didn’t know it at the time. Now there are three Jacks in his Kindergarten class. Maybe we should have named him Sky Miles or something similar so he would stand out.
