Unusual Made Up Names

Many people want names that are so unusual, they are practically unique. Made up names are perfect for them. Chances are, a person with a made up name will never meet another with the same name. Although a made up name quite often gets a weird look and a comment like "Oh. That's really... unusual.", almost as often you get comments like "Wow, that is great name! How do you spell it? Where did you (or your parents) get the name?" Most made up names are those that people either love or hate, they are not likely to get a yawn and a "Ho-hum".

If you make up a name, you will most likely never meet another person with that name. However, that doesn't mean that a name you made up will be unique. There have been times where someone made up a name, only to meet someone else with the same name that they made up. That is pretty rare, though, as a made up names are the most unusual names you can find.

Making up a name is fairly easy, you just combine sounds of other names and words. Our two youngest daughters have made up names. We found the name Jolissa (our third daughter's name) in a baby name book, listed as a combination of Josephine and Lissa. Jesaray (our fourth daughter's name) is a variation of the name Jezaret, which was the name of a daughter of friends of ours. They took Je from the father's name Jesse, za from the mother's name Riza, and ret from the grandmother's name Margaret. Pronouncing the ret as ray, they got the name Jezaret (Jez-uh-ray). Making up a name is a great way to honor people by naming your child after them, and at the same time you give your child an unusual and modern sounding name. Someone emailed me with the name Keilyn, Kei taken from the father's name Keith, and Lyn taken from the mother's middle name Lynette.

Another way to make up a name that I have begun encountering is to take the child's last name, or a last name of someone you would like to honor, or just a word that has meaning to you, and spell it backwards. I had someone email me the name Nevaeh, Heaven spelled backwards. Someone else submitted the name Remle, which is Elmer spelled backwards. I know a girl whose is named Raleda, which is her last name spelled backwards. Of course, it doesn't work with all names. For example, when you reverse the names Smith and Harrison, you get Htims and Nosirrah. But some surnames spelled backwards work out to be a lovely and unusual name, like the name Raleda. My last name, Harpel, is Leprah spelled backwards, which is unusual to say the least, and interesting I think. Some other names I think work well are Harrel (Lerrah) Snider (Redins) Davis (Sivad) Tanner (Rennat) Lennon (Nonnel) and Lenox (Xonel). Try it out, the possibilities are endless!

If the meaning of names is important to you, but you like the sound of a made up name, then you can still have a made up name with a great meaning by combining the meanings of the names. For example, Jo from Josephine means "God Will Increase" and Lissa taken from Elissa can mean "Great Happiness". So Jolissa means "God will increase great happiness" or more simply "Joy from the Lord". We have adopted the meaning "God is my King" as the meaning of Jesaray, taking one of the meanings of Jessica, "God Exsists", and one of the meanings of Ray, "King". Another meaning of Jesaray could be "God saw what you hoped for", taking "God Sees" from Jessica and "So long hoped for" from Desiree. Or you could say that Jesaray means "Wealth and Royalty", since Jesse means "Wealthy" and Ray means "King". You could also take the meaning of a name that is close to the made up name you like, such as taking the meaning of Kyle for the name Kylon, and cosidering Kylon to be a variation of the name Kyle. Or you could make up a meaning all together, to go with the newly made up name. Even if you don't really care about the meaning of a name, you might want to adopt one anyway, just to save trouble. I find that a lot of people are very interested in unusual names, and one question thay ask a lot is what does the name mean. It might save time and trouble to have a meaning all ready, instead of explaing that the name really doesn't have a meaning, that it is a newly made up name, etc.

Here is a list of made up names, some I have made up, some are names I have heard or read that have been made up by others. Many are names that people have emailed me. I got quite a few by playing around with the Name Maker at Namenerds.com. (If you don't find anything you like here, you should try playing around with the Name Maker.)