The Unfiltered Guide To Baby Names 2025 And Avoiding Regret

I was standing in the middle of a Target aisle at 8:42 PM on a Tuesday, wearing maternity sweatpants with a questionable, crusty yogurt stain on the left thigh, when my husband confidently suggested the name "Garth" for our unborn child. Garth. Like the country singer. Or the guy from Wayne's World. I remember just staring at him, clutching a giant plastic bottle of generic Tums, feeling my blood pressure literally spike. My OB-GYN had actually warned me at my 34-week appointment that my resting heart rate was getting a little chaotic and I needed to "minimize unnecessary stressors." I’m pretty sure she meant work deadlines, but trying to agree on an identity for a human being who's currently using your bladder as a trampoline is, quite frankly, a medical hazard.

Anyway, the point is, picking an identity for your kid is absolute hell. When I was pregnant with Leo (who's now seven and currently trying to feed the dog a Lego), I spent three straight weeks crying over baby name lists on the internet. And now that we're staring down the barrel of a whole new year, everyone is obsessing over what the popular names for babies are going to be as we enter 2025. Generation Beta is arriving, which sounds like a software update that’s going to crash your phone, but it’s actually just our new babies. The trends are shifting, the rules are changing, and honestly, we're all just terrified of screwing it up. Oh god, it’s so stressful.

Everyone wants to live in the woods now

There's this massive trend happening right now that experts are calling "Cottagecore" or nature aesthetics, which basically means we all spent too much time indoors over the last few years and now we want our kids to sound like they were born in a mossy glen next to a babbling brook. People are picking names like Cove, Meadow, River, Rye, and Ash.

I actually love this trend, even though I live in a cramped apartment where my only nature exposure is the aggressively loud squirrel on my fire escape. There’s something really calming about it. I’m pretty sure my neighbor’s kid is named Rye. Like the bread. Or the whiskey. I’m too tired to ask him, but he’s cute. This whole back-to-nature naming obsession perfectly mirrors how desperate millennial and Gen-Z parents are to just simplify things. We want organic foods, we want wooden toys instead of flashing plastic monstrosities that sing off-key songs at 3 AM, and we want clothes that don't feel like they were made in a chemical plant.

When Maya was born, she basically lived in this Sleeveless Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. Because if you’re going to name your kid something earthy and natural like Coast or Violet, you can't really dress them in scratchy, neon polyester, you know? I was obsessed with the sage green color. The fabric is 95% organic cotton, which is great because Maya’s skin would break out in angry red eczema patches if you even looked at her the wrong way. It has this envelope-style shoulder thing going on, which meant when she had a spectacular diaper blowout (always in public, always when I was already late), I could pull the whole thing down over her legs instead of dragging it over her head. It’s soft, it breathes, and it doesn't have those terrible scratchy tags.

If you're already feeling overwhelmed by this entire naming process and just want to look at tiny, soft things instead, maybe browse some organic baby clothes and let your brain rest for a minute.

Little old men and middle-aged bankers

Okay, the other thing that's happening is this wild vintage revival mixed with gender-bending that's honestly kind of fascinating. We aren't just doing unisex names anymore. We're fully giving baby girls the names of middle-aged male accountants.

I read somewhere that parents are picking names like Drew, Ryan, Blake, and Dylan for little girls. And I've to say, I'm here for it. A toddler named Ryan in a floral dress? Incredible. On the flip side, boys are getting these very soft, romantic, early-1900s names. Little baby Arthurs. I saw a toddler named Arthur aggressively eating a handful of sand at the playground last week and it just felt right. Like he should be doing my taxes but instead he's digesting debris. Margot and Eloise are also huge right now.

Oh, and apparently people are naming boys Kit now, which I just don't understand at all. Moving on.

When pop culture ruins your shortlist

My husband is one of those people who thinks he’s immune to pop culture, but he absolutely is not. The amount of names climbing the charts right now just because of musicians is staggering. Sabrina is spiking. Billie is everywhere. Someone on an internet forum said the name "Apple" shot up hundreds of spots recently because of Charli XCX's Brat album, which I only vaguely understand because I'm 35 and mostly listen to white noise to drown out the sound of my own thoughts.

We almost fell into a pop culture trap with Maya. My husband wanted to name her after a character in this weird indie sci-fi movie he loves, and I was so sleep-deprived during my third trimester that I almost agreed to it. I think my brain was just melting out of my ears.

Speaking of my husband making questionable choices, around the time Maya started cutting her first teeth, he proudly came home with this Panda Teether. He bought it because he thought the bamboo detailing was "aesthetically significant" or whatever. It’s... fine. It's just okay. The silicone is easy to wash when it inevitably ends up covered in floor lint and dog hair, and it doesn't have any BPA crap in it, which is good. But honestly? Maya mostly just used it as a weapon to hit the cat. When she was genuinely in pain, she strongly preferred gnawing aggressively on my actual fingers. But hey, it looked cute in the diaper bag.

The big ones that absolutely refuse to die

Despite all these people naming their kids after bodies of water and 1920s jazz singers, the actual data shows that we're basically just repeating ourselves. The kids being born into 2025 are still going to be surrounded by Olivias and Noahs. Liam is still everywhere. Amelia is practically unavoidable.

I remember sitting in the pediatrician's office when Leo was a newborn, practically vibrating with postpartum anxiety, and the doctor was trying to explain some study about how maternal stress makes us crave familiarity. I probably misunderstood him because I hadn't slept in four days, but I think the science basically says we pick these super common names because we're terrified of making a mistake. There was a survey recently from some UK baby brand that said a quarter of parents worry they’ll completely regret their kid's name, so they just default to things that are impossible to spell wrong.

Which, fair. When Leo was a baby, he was a chaotic little banshee who hated sleep. I was so anxious all the time. The only thing that always calmed him down was being swaddled in the Colorful Dinosaur Bamboo Baby Blanket. I bought it because I was desperately scrolling my phone at 2 AM. I love this blanket so much. The bamboo-cotton blend is aggressively soft—like, so soft I seriously tried to steal it and sleep under it once when I was hiding from my family in the nursery. It’s temperature regulating, so he didn't wake up sweaty and screaming, and the dinosaur print is really stylish and cute, not that cheap, loud cartoon stuff that gives me a migraine. Naming a kid is stressful, but wrapping them in bamboo is incredibly easy.

How to not screw this up completely

Every parenting blog on the internet is going to give you a bulleted list of rules for picking an identity for your child, but most of them are garbage. Don't ask Reddit for advice. I posted a name idea on an anonymous forum once, asking if "Leo" sounded too much like a golden retriever, and an internet troll told me I was too stupid to be a mother. Just a lovely, supportive place, the internet.

Instead of driving yourself crazy with rules, just try writing the full initials down on a piece of paper and then loudly yelling the entire name at a closed door a few times while drinking your lukewarm coffee, because if you realize your kid's initials spell A.S.S. or B.A.D. only after you've already signed the legal birth certificate at the hospital, it's going to be a massive administrative nightmare to fix and you simply don't have the energy for that kind of paperwork on three hours of sleep.

Before we get into the weird, messy questions everyone secretly asks about naming their kid, maybe treat yourself to something that seriously makes sense right now—grab some organic baby essentials to make your life a little softer, and then go take a nap. You've earned it.

The really messy questions nobody wants to ask aloud

Does the perfect name genuinely exist?

No. Literally no. I’m convinced the "perfect name" is a myth invented by greeting card companies to make us feel inadequate. You're naming a human who will eventually have a personality, weird habits, and strong opinions about chicken nuggets. The name you pick will eventually just become *them*. I stressed for months over Maya's name, and now she's just... Maya. Even when she's throwing a tantrum in the cereal aisle, the name fits. You just have to pick something you don't hate and let the kid do the rest of the work.

What if my partner's name ideas are actual garbage?

I feel this in my soul. See the aforementioned "Garth" incident. My strategy was just to politely say "Oh, that's interesting, let's put it on the maybe list!" and then conveniently "lose" the list. Or, honestly, just blame pregnancy hormones. Tell them the name gives you heartburn. You're growing the organs; you get veto power. It’s not a democracy, it’s a hostage situation where the baby is the hostage taker.

Is it bad if my kid has a super popular name?

Not at all. I know we all want our kids to be unique little snowflakes, but there's a reason names like Olivia and Noah are so popular. They sound nice! They're easy to spell! When your kid goes to Starbucks in twenty years, the barista won't spell it with a silent Q. There's absolutely no shame in picking a top-ten name. Plus, they'll always be able to find those personalized license plates at gift shops, which is a joy my husband (whose name is tragically uncommon) has been bitter about his entire life.

Do I really need to bring a shortlist to the hospital?

I mean, you don't *need* to do anything, but I highly think it. People love to say, "You'll know the name when you see their little face!" That's a lie. When I saw Leo's face for the first time, he looked like a furious, wrinkly purple potato. He didn't look like a "Leo." He looked like an angry thumb. Have two or three names written down on your phone so that when the nurses are pestering you for the paperwork and you're high on adrenaline and epidural meds, you've options to choose from instead of panicking and naming your baby after the nearest piece of medical equipment.

How do I handle family members who hate our name choice?

You lie to them. Seriously. Never tell your family the name before the baby is born. If you tell your mother-in-law the name at Thanksgiving, she has three solid months to tell you about a dog she knew in 1984 with that name, or how it sounds like a brand of toilet paper. Once the baby is physically outside of your body and wearing a tiny hat, people are mathematically 98% less likely to insult the name to your face. Keep it a secret. Protect your peace.