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Think smooth. Imagine a name with the gloss of honey and the flow of water. If it's an English name, chances are it's fashionable for American girls today. From the trim sweetness of "raindrop names"like Lily to the lyricism of "liquid names" like Aurelia, parents are drawn to the sleekest sounds around.
One of the beauties of the fluid sounds is that they travel well. To demonstrate, I've collected examples of smooth girls' names from all over the world. These names, from 33 different languages, show off an extraordinary range of styles. But not one has hard stops or rough edges; just silky-smooth flow.
| SMOOTH GIRL'S NAME | LANGUAGE | MEANING/ORIGIN |
|---|---|---|
| Yaa | Akan | "Thursday" |
| Lule | Albanian | "Flower" |
| Rahmah | Arabic | "Mercy" |
| Naiara | Basque | Form of the place name Nájera |
| Emina | Bosnian | From Amin, "Trustworthy, truthful" |
| Raya | Bulgarian | "Paradise," also a diminutive of Rayna |
| Mireia | Catalan | Form of the Occitan name Mirèio, a literary invention meaning "admirable" |
| Elowen | Cornish | "Elm tree" |
| Lenna | Estonian | Short form of names such as Helena |
| Minea | Finnish | From a character in the famous Finnish novel "The Egyptian" |
| Malou | French | Contraction of Marie-Louise |
| Nele | German | A pet form of names such as Cornelia |
| Eleni | Greek | Helen |
| Naja | Greenlandic | "Little sister" |
| Iolana | Hawaiian | "Soar" |
| Yael | Hebrew | "Ibex" |
| Lilla | Hungarian | Originally a short form of names starting with Li |
| Anuli | Igbo | "Merry" |
| Orla | Irish | From Órfhlaith, "golden princess" |
| Ilaria | Italian | Hilary, "cheerful" |
| Airi | Japanese | Can be written with kanji of various meanings, frequently "love + jasmine" |
| Aiman | Kazakh | From Ai, meaning "moon" |
| Aniela | Polish | Angela |
| Iria | Portuguese | Saint's name, possibly a form of Irene |
| Yelena | Russian | Helen |
| Riya | Sanskrit | "Singer" |
| Noelia | Spanish | Noel |
| Lulu | Swahili | "Pearl" |
| Linnea | Swedish | The name of a flower, after the Swedish botanist Linnaeus |
| Malai | Thai | "Flower garland" |
| Nuray | Turkish | "Radiant moon" |
| Lowri | Welsh | Laura |
| Amahle | Zulu | "Beautiful" |
