A Comprehensive List of All the Best Hipster Baby Names

Photo via Flickr user Sharon

FitPregnancy.com released a list of the hottest hipster baby names of 2014, and it was, as expected, a big, steamy crockpot full of crazy. A baby is a blank canvas with which to project your anxieties about how lame/unsuccessful you are. A child is like a second chance at life, so it's become popular to try to find a nontraditional, weird name in the hope that the kid will grow up to be an Olympic skiier, a baseball player, or Ronnie James Dio. Unfortunately, the odds of failing spectacularly are very, very high.

Choosing a bad name for your little bundle of joy could be the difference between your baby going to Yale or sucking exhaust fumes out of your SUV's tailpipe just to "feel something real." I don't care how many dope tricks he can do on a skateboard, if your son's name is Mortimer Von Brompfman, he's not going to amount to more than being really good at vampire role-playing games and fashioning steampunk versions of everyday objects to sell on Etsy.

There's no clear definition for what constitutes a "hipster baby name," though I'm pretty sure the FitPregnancy.com list missed the mark by not being weird enough. All the really chill toddlers who take baby DJ classes and were normcore before normcore was "normcore" will just think your kids' parents are fucking mad basic. They'd be right.

I've decided to rank the names on the FitPregnancy list from one to ten on a chillness scale to show you where they went wrong, plus offer some way chiller suggestions for the next time you decide to selfishly create another life on a planet that's running out of resources.

The Boys

• Auden (9)
• Byron (9)
• Enoch (1)
• Gulliver (2)
• Ignatius (1)
• Lennon (9)
• Murray (15)
• Nico (7)
• Orson (5)
• Roman (7)
• Salinger (10)
• Zane (16)

"Auden" is surely a reference to the English poet W. H. Auden. Save this name for your little fella if you want him to be sensitive, contemplative, and witty. Same with "Byron" and "Salinger." Literary references are a great substitute for a personality, so use these liberally! Well, except for Ignatius, unless you want your son to grow up to be a blithering idiot who will in turn name his kid something dumb like "Enoch" or "Gulliver."

"Nico" makes me think of the mysterious German chanteuse, which is weird, since this is supposed to be a boy's name. I guess that's on me. "Murray" evokes hipster icon and drunk maniac Bill Murray. "Orson" is for obese film director Orson Wells. "Lennon" is for writer/actor Thomas Lennon from The State. I had to give "Zane" a 16 out of 10 because who doesn't love Billy Zane? That's right, no one.

What this list is missing is a sense of risk. A couple suggestions:

• Damascus
• Anders
• Shamwow
• Brutus
• Festus
• Barnaby
• Hercule
• RoboCop
• Ronnie James Dio

The Girls

• Briseida (3)
• Farrah (8)
• Inez (8)
• Liora (8)
• Minnie (8)
• Odette (8)
• Pandora (1)
• Romy (8)
• Suzette (8)
• Tessie (8)
• Wren (8)
• Zola (8)

Most of these were pretty great, save for a couple notable slackers. The references for the girls are maybe a bit less highbrow, but for the better. Pandora is clearly a nice shoutout to James Cameron's seminal masterwork Avatar. Interesting that "Romy" made the list. but not "Michele." Yet another career low point for Lisa Kudrow. Tessie was the name of my grandmother, and she was pretty hip. She owned a phonograph before it was cool.

Some alternatives:

• Badger
• Partition
• Bingo
• DMZ
• Shadowcat
• Papajohns
• Juwanna
• Hillary

Good luck to all the babies out there. You're going to need it.

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