Michelle Horton
Cool Baby Names OUTSIDE the Top 1,000 Baby Names
If you check the annual Top Baby Name list as a general What Not To Name My Baby reference — as many modern parents do — then this is the list for you.
You’re looking for a baby name that’s cool and usable, but you’d prefer if your child wasn’t one of many Jessicas/Michaels/Sophias in school — destined to be identified with a last initial. You moan and groan when your favorite formerly unique names (Henry, Penelope, Oliver) creep up into the “popular” zone, and you take your naming seriously.
And so I give you some of the coolest baby names that haven’t hit the Top 1,000…yet:
To My Mother, on Her 27th Mother's Day
I can’t remember where I was when I heard the breast cancer diagnosis, or how she told me. I can’t remember the thoughts that ran through my head, or how I responded.
All I remember is the murky fog that quietly settled over my life, muffling sounds and dulling…everything. The thought of cancer lurking inside my mother’s body, threatening to take her so effortlessly, so casually, was unbearable.
And then a few weeks later — the diagnosis stinging like a freshly opened wound — I found out that I’d soon be a mother myself.
That’s when the fog felt suffocatingly thick.
And yet my mother was strong enough for the two of us — bravely barreling through tests and multiple surgeries, all while holding my hand and listening to my darkest thoughts.
To My Sister, on Her First Mother's Day
My sister is celebrating her first Mother’s Day, which is such a uniquely special holiday. The first time you’re being thanked and celebrated for this new responsibility and identity that still feels surreal — and so I want to thank her.
I want to celebrate her.
Because there are so many reasons I admire my little sister, as a mother. Here are just 10 of those reasons (plus the sweetest photos of my sister and nephew):
The Contents of a Mom's Bag
I recently tweeted: “If the contents in your handbag are telling of your personality, I must be schizophrenic,” and I meant every character.
At any given time I typically carry little boy underwear, plastic bags (for aforementioned underwear), children’s skinny jeans, little toys, broken crayons, bags of food, socks, mittens, water bottles, and maybe some lipstick for good measure. Emptying out my handbag is like a serious Spring Cleaning undertaking — I’m pulling out USB cords and loose batteries and tiny LEGO pieces that seem to multiply.
But this is probably my most epic handbag find ever:
The Strange Sleeping Habits of Babies
It’s important to remember that newborns just spent their entire existence crammed into a cozy womb, involuntarily swaying and occasionally engaging in some (amniotic) water aerobics. Once space got tight, maybe their left arm tended to get stuck over their heads, or maybe they liked to stretch out their right leg — right there into your rib — because that’s how things felt comfy.
But then they bring those weird sleep positions out here in the real world.
Like take my son when he was an infant, for example. He liked to sleep with one victory arm straight up in the air. All the time.
