Scots get creative with baby names

Parents in Scotland are giving their children increasingly unusual names.

The National Records of Scotland has just published every forename registered during the period from January to November 2012 on its website.

There were 7,400 different first names for girls and boys, and remarkably almost 4,800 of them were unique.

As well as a variety of different spellings of the same names, there are thousands of one-off names that most people would agree are a little, well, unfamiliar.

There’s a Merlin and a Mercy, a Hero and an Honour, and even an Attila and a German.

Three girls were named Glory, and there was also a Virtue, Miracle, Adorable, Atlanta-Blush, Melody-Fair, Divinefavour, Pagan-Willow, Wyntrr and Dandy.

Two little boys have simply been called A, two are registered as T, while another is just J. There’s also a couple of Tjs, two Djs and a Cj.

Perhaps it was music-loving parents who called their baby boys Hendrix, Axl, Cash, Donovan and Elvis. There are two Presleys, a name also shared by a baby girl.

There are four Princes but just three Princesses, and three Queenies. There’s a male Man and a female Man, eight Romeos and two Juliets.

Phoenix was registered eight times three for boys and five for girls. Other American place names include Denver, Indiana, Texas and Montana.

Slightly unusual patriotic names include Lomond, Clyde and a little girl called Thistle.