To celebrate eight years of blogging, Bish Denham is hosting the Listing Hop. Participants merely list between 5 to 25 things, in any category.
Though I have a lot of favorite names, in many different languages, I’ll keep my list to 24, with 12 names for each sex. Some have been among my favorites almost since I can remember, while others only became favorites within more recent memory.
Female:
1. Easter (one of the two names I’ve loved the longest)
2. Echo (the other name I’ve loved longest)
3. Cecilia
4. Anastasiya/Anastasia (only with the proper Eastern European pronunciation, Ah-nah-STAH-see-yah)
5. Octavia, Tavie for short
6. Eulalia (Yu-LAHL-yah), Lally for short
7. Xanthe
8. Quintessa
9. Zvonimira (meaning “the sound of peace”)
10. Helena
11. Zora (meaning “dawn”)
12. Ghisolabella
Male:
1. Samuel (the name I still hope to someday give to a child of mine)
2. Peter
3. Leopold
4. Arthur (which I think would be a really good name for me if I were a man)
5. Wolfram (another name I think would suit me well were I a man)
6. Ezra
7. Felix/Feliks
8. Theodore
9. David (in spite of its massive overuse, I’ve always loved this name)
10. Zvonimir, Zvonko for short
11. Edgar
12. Timothy
Onomastics Outside the Box 
Thanks for listing with me! I love Zvonimira and the meaning, “the sound of peace.” Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
I love Octavia and Arthur as well 🙂 And Theo. I think my favorite female name is Olivia.
Great list! Gorgeous names. Is there a job where you just name babies for a living?… 😀
That would be an awesome job! I’m sure some people with money to burn hire baby naming consultants, like the couples on TLC’s A Baby Story.
Ooo, I like Eulalia!That rolls nicely off the tongue.
I discovered the name when I was about twenty, and saw it as the name of some Spanish poet.
Easter is a great name. And I’ve always loved Helena. Ezra is my favorite male name on your list. 🙂
I used to have fictional twins named Easter and Echo, from the time I was about six. Years later, I resurrected them for a picture book I made for a final project in an early childhood education class.
I have the name Echo on my name list too,
Juneta Writer’s Gambit
David is the name of my oldest child. I never considered another one. I hope you don’t mind, but I jotted a few of those down in my book of things I want to remember for future novels.
Sure, you’re welcome to use those names. I love giving people ideas for character names.
I feel the same way about wanting to name my potential future son Samuel. I fell in love with the name and the Bible story when I was twelve years old, and I haven’t wanted to use any other name since. Even better is that I could use the nickname Shemp, since I’m a huge Three Stooges fan.
Easter is a pretty name for a girl.
Four of your male names are from the Bible – nice.
Thanks for participating in the blog hop, Carrie-Anne!
My taste in male names tends to be a little more conservative than my taste in female names, though there are some less-common male names I gravitate towards. If I ever have a Samuel, he’ll be named for the Prophet Samuel. The story of 12-year-old Samuel receiving his first call has always been my favorite Bible story.
I love the unusual names on your list!
Yvonne
Thanks!
Very interesting names, but Felix, reminds me of Felix the Cat, don’t see that on a man, at least not one I’d date. 🙂
I’ve always loved the names Anastasia, Helena, and David, too. And, yes, the pronunciation of Anastasia has to be as you outlined.
VERY cool list! I really like Easter—and I’ve never heard it used, so double points 🙂 Another female name I love is Pélagie (which I used for one of the main characters in my book); I’ve never heard that one used, either. And I *love* Arthur—my dad’s name, except, being Mexican, it was Arturo.
Super cool list!
You’ve got some unusual names here along with some normal ones. Some I’ve never heard of.
Oddly enough, earlier this morning I was thinking about compiling a list of my least favorite names. Maybe I won’t since it could offend somebody.
Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out
I very much hope your babies will mostly be boys. 😀
Some girl names are quite out of date and the kids will be embarrassed when they reach puberty (I know, I’ve got two girls in puberty right now and they’re embarrassed by everything).