Are we finally saying goodbye to Olivia and Liam? Here’s what experts are predicting for the next wave of baby names.
These Baby Names Will Be Everywhere in the Next 10 Years
Published on Feb. 25, 2025
When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I spent hours discussing baby-name trends. Some of my favorite picks were already becoming pretty popular, which meant they would likely be everywhere by the time our kiddo entered school. (I was always in love with the name Charlotte—Charlie for short!—but after Princess Charlotte was born in 2015, I sensed I would be seeing little Charlottes everywhere.) We ultimately settled on the name Lena, a beautiful vintage name that so many people have told me is their mother’s or grandmother’s name and that I have yet to see on another 5-year-old.
Everyone wants their child’s name to be unique, but it can be hard to predict what will be popular in the future. It can also be fun to get in on the ground floor of a baby-naming trend and see your prescient choice rise through the ranks. Whatever your preference, Nameberry has some ideas on what might be coming down the pike. The popular baby-naming site recently predicted the names it thinks will rise quickly up the trends list in the next 10 years.
So which names are you going to start hearing everywhere? And is there an overarching theme when it comes to the future of baby names? Read on to find out.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more baby names, humor, cleaning, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.
How were these up-and-coming names identified?
Nameberry used a “proprietary formula” to predict the biggest baby names of the next 10 years. Translation: The exact details of this formula are staying under wraps! That said, while the site’s experts expect to see currently popular names like Charlotte and Oliver continue to top the girls’ and boys’ lists, respectively, Nameberry’s algorithm goes beyond that. It determines which of the fastest-rising girl and boy names have the highest likelihood of breaking into the top 1,000 between 2025 and 2035.
What big baby-name trends are coming our way?
If there’s one word that best describes the list of baby names that Nameberry predicts will make a splash over the next decade, it’s unique. Unlike the recent vintage and Western baby-name trends, which featured a lot of familiar-sounding American names, these baby names draw heavily from what Nameberry calls Global Americana—names that honor a baby’s cultural identity and heritage.
Case in point: The No. 1 prediction for girl names is Areli, a Hebrew name that means “lion of God,” while for boys, it’s Ozias, a Greek name meaning “my strength is God.” There’s also Yuna, which hails from Japan and can mean “superiority” or “gentleness,” as well as Elowen, a Cornish name that translates to “elm tree.”
Nature-based names also feature heavily in this list. In addition to Elowen, there’s Arden, Viola, Fia and Icelynn for girls, as well as Woods and Zephyr for boys. You’ll also see romantic names like Poetry and Lovelynn, not to mention a riff on my daughter’s name—Leni!
Other noteworthy trends, even beyond this list, include boy names that begin with the letter E (such as Evren) and girl names ending in -lyn and -lee sounds (like Lovelyn and Areli), according to Rebekah Wahlberg, a baby-name trends specialist with BabyCenter, who did not work with Nameberry on these predictions.
See the full list of soon-to-be-trending names, according to Nameberry, below:
The fastest-rising girl names
- Areli
- Arden
- Yuna
- Soraya
- Fia
- Vida
- Zaya
- Poetry
- Lovelyn
- Leni
- Isadora
- Viola
- Adara
- Elowen
- Riya
- Noeli
- Icelynn
- Malone
- Ripley
- Gianni
The fastest-rising boy names
- Ozias
- Alakai
- Chozyn
- Asai
- Tiago
- Townes
- Woods
- Sire
- Casper
- Evren
- Zephyr
- Kit
- Laith
- Booker
- Ren
- Cosmo
- Reyes
- Howard
- Caelum
- Lenny
Will these baby names unseat the most popular names?
Probably not. “It’ll take a pretty significant surge in cultural influence to see registrations balloon where the current top 10 names are unseated by new names that aren’t already very popular,” says Wahlberg, who notes that popular names like Olivia and Liam have ranked in the top 10 names in the Social Security database for well over a decade already. Olivia made its appearance in 2001 and Liam in 2010, and Nameberry is predicting that those names will still be in the top 10 in 2035.
That said, while these fast-rising names probably won’t crack the top 100 in the next 10 years, they will likely become a lot more common. And hey, a name’s rise to baby-name domination has to start somewhere!
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Nameberry: “Predicting the Future of Baby Names”
- Nameberry: “The Most Popular Baby Names of the Future”
- Social Security Administration: “Baby Names”
- Rebekah Wahlberg, baby-name trends specialist at BabyCenter; email interview, February 2025
