A master list of still-rare options from generations past

Violet, Olivia, Evelyn, Vivian. Oliver, Xavier, Levi. The elegant intrigue of the letter V powers many of this generation’s top traditional baby names.

Now names like Ivy, Maeve, Everett and Valentina are flying up the charts as well. Are there any still-rare antiques V’s left to discover? There are indeed, but they take some digging. I decided to find them all.

The first step was identifying every V name that showed up in US baby name stats in multiple years prior to 1925—over a thousand names in total. Then I narrowed down to the “undiscovered” by eliminating names that ranked among the top 500 for boys or girls at any time in the past half-century.

Next stop, style. A glance at the list revealed a problem. In many old names, another consonant presses up against the V, dulling its sharp edge and making the name feel too heavy for contemporary style. So I said goodbye to Orville, Belva and friends. Then I dropped variant spellings (e.g. Vyvyan) and probable data errors (Slyvia). A final subjective pass eliminated many names that are simply out of step with current usage (Veachel, Lavoid, Novice, Oval).

That left 112 realistic contenders. A few of them, like Mavis and Vito, will be familiar from past generations. Others, like Ravenell and Tavie, are more obscure. But it wasn’t so long ago that Ava was just an obscure old V name waiting to be discovered too. Could one of these be next?