Do you like Rhiannon? Are you more in tune with Billie Jean?
A reader recently e-mailed me and asked for some baby name suggestions. Specifically, she wanted names from classic rock songs.
I’m somewhat of a classic rock fan, so I was able to come up with a few names off the top of my head (like “Angie” by the Stones and “Amanda” by Boston). After about ten, though, I was stuck.
So for more ideas I skimmed through a few online lists featuring thousands of song-monikers from all types of music. I ended up sending the reader a whole bunch of name suggestions, and I’m just waiting to hear back about whether she found any of them helpful.
What about you: If you were going to use song titles as a source of baby name inspiration, what genre(s) of music would you check out first? (Rock, pop, R&B, jazz, rap, folk, country, metal, punk…?)
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The first song-based name that comes to my mind is Jenny (as in “Jenny Jenny (867-5309)”). Also Alison (as in the Elvis Costello song).
That wikipedia list is interesting – there are some names used over and over. I wonder if they just are more musical-sounding.
I noticed that too. Those popular song names could be more musical sounding, or maybe they were just popular when certain songs were written — maybe a little bit of both…
The songs I always think of are:
Wendy (from Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen – not in the title, ironically)
Jesse’s Girl (Rick Springfield)
Jeremy (Pearl Jam)
Caroline (Concrete Blonde)
Charlotte Sometimes (The Cure)
I love classic rock and I swore that someday I’d name my child(ren) after classic rock songs or musicians. As I grew older, I grew to dislike most of the names in general, and realized how horrible it would’ve been to name my child Strawberry Fields. I’m several months late in this comment because I only just found your site and I just love researching baby names and such, despite having no children of my own as of yet. But, anyhow, here are my lists of classic rock baby names (a few may be less classic rock and more just from other music of the period in time (I’m going for 1960s thru the mid-ish 1980s), but eh).
Charlotte, Rhiannon, Layla, Angie, Caroline, Jenny, Sara, Lucy, Rita, Prudence, Loretta, Janie, Alexa, Melissa, Jessica, Mandy, Joan, Rhonda, Pam, Lizzie, Strawberry, Molly, Eileen, Sally, Bennie, Martha, Nancy, Julia, Penny, Marie, Christine, Katy, Rose, Mary Ann, Linda, Allison, Betty, Ann, Rosanna, Delilah, Mary, Cordelia, Tangerine, Brandy, Emily, Jane, Angel, Billie Jean, Eleanor, Vera, Roxanne, Barbara Ann, Ruby, Tuesday, Cecilia, Nikita, Belladonna, Rikki, Mary Jane.
Maxwell, Jude, Jesse, Billy, Daniel, Jim, Tony, Rico, Paul, Bill, Anthony, Ziggy, Dan, Harry, Levon, Nikita, Don, Edmund, Casey, Henry, Leroy, Jimmy, Bob, John, Roy, Stu, Quinn, Sebastian, Johnny, Phil, Michael, Martin, Luther, Alan, Eugene, Arnold, Jack, Tom, Bart, Eddie.
Okay, that’s all I could think off the top of my head.
Great lists, Annika! Thanks so much. :)
Actually I love the name Layla (from the Top Rock Song by Eric Clapton) for a girl.
I’ve just called my DD Laylah I love the Eric Clapton song and added the H because her Daddy’s a fussy git LOL.
My parents named me Rainbow after the Stones “She’s a Rainbow”