When it comes to choosing a baby name, an interesting avenue to explore are names that stem from United States cities. Not only are many of them gender neutral, but they can be a great way to pay homage to a place that's meaningful to the parents or families of the child.
If anyone needs some inspo, BeenVerified recently released a study to show the top city-themed baby names of the last decade. Using data from the Social Security Administration, the BeenVerified study found exactly how many baby boys and girls were given these top city-themed names in the last 10 years.
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Kansas
Kansas as a city has grown in popularity over the past year thanks to Chiefs' football player Travis Kelce's romance with singer Taylor Swift. Over the past 10 years, 237 baby girls were named Kansas, 18 of which were born just last year, per the Social Security Administration data.
Mesa
Mesa is a city in Arizona near Phoenix (which is also on this list). BeenVerified reported that Mesa was most popular as a girls' name, with 291 babies recorded with the moniker in the last decade. Mesa was named for the Spanish word for "table," referring to the flat-topped hills present in the city, per National Geographic and The Arizona Republic.
Angeles
Angeles is the Spanish word for "angels," making it a really sweet baby name. Per the BeenVerified study, 423 baby girls were given this name in the last decade. Whether as a nod to the California city itself or just to the Spanish meaning of the word, it's a cute and unique name.
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Boston
The capitol of Massachusetts is a popular gender neutral baby name. Last year, 429 baby boys were named Boston compared to 41 baby girls. We can see a baseball-loving family appreciating this name if they're big Boston Red Sox fans. But even if someone doesn't have a tie to the city, it's still a cool choice.
Houston
Texas actually has a few popular city names on this list, with Houston coming in as the least used among the top four Texas cities. The name was most popular for baby boys, with 3,290 male children getting the moniker over the past decade. Although some baby girls have been given the name, it's much rarer.
Denver
The capitol of Colorado makes for a great gender neutral baby name. BeenVerfied's study found that it was nearly doubly more popular as a boys' name, though. Over the past 10 years, there were 4,113 boys named Denver and 2,612 girls with that namesake.
Memphis
The Tennessee city actually got its name from the ancient city Memphis in Egypt, according to the Tennessee State Museum. And over the last decade, thousands of babies were named after the city as well. To be exact: 5,767 boys and 1,555 girls.
Francisco
Francisco, the second half of the popular city San Francisco, also makes for a great baby name. Over the last 10 years, 13,037 baby boys were given the moniker. For its part, the city itself was named for St. Francis of Assisi, per the San Francisco Chronicle.
Dallas
Another popular Texas city name choice for babies is Dallas. There were 4,920 baby girls named Dallas in the last 10 years and a whopping 13,146 baby boys given that name. Per BeenVerified, it's the seventh most popular city-themed baby name overall.
Phoenix
Phoenix is a super popular baby name for boys or girls. The BeenVerified study found that in the last decade, 8,883 baby girls got this name and 13,085 boys did as well. One of those was Paris Hilton's son Phoenix. She carried on the city name tradition that her own parents started with her.
Antonio
Not all the babies named Antonio were probably named after San Antonio, Texas. Antonio is a common Italian boys' name in general. But whether they were named for the city or not, there were still a lot of Antonios born in the last 10 years — 23,819 to be exact.
Diego
San Diego in California is named after Saint Didacus of Alcalá (translated from Latin into Spanish as San Diego de Alcalá), according to the University of San Diego. And now that saint shares his name with many young boys born in the last decade — over 30,000 of them.
Jose
It's more likely that babies named Jose were given that name because it's a popular Spanish version of Joseph, but the California city of San Jose shares the name as well. Per the BeenVerified study, 44,608 boys were named Jose in the last 10 years compared to just 86 girls.
Austin
The second most popular city-themed baby name was Austin, which is also a popular city in Texas. The name Austin, which means "great," was most commonly used for baby boys in the last decade with over 45,000 boys named Austin. It can technically be gender neutral though, and just around 1,500 girls were given the moniker as well.
Charlotte
The number one baby name that's also a city name was Charlotte. In the last 10 years, 125,849 baby girls were given this name (and 102 boys). It probably helped its popularity that Kate Middleton and Prince William named their daughter Charlotte — even though it wasn't necessarily done in reference to the North Carolina city.
