Branch, Creek and Canyon, the ‘landscape’ baby names popular for 2025

If you’re a new parent, you’ll understand the pressure comes with choosing a name for your newborn baby.

Many turn to baby name books or websites, looking through so many monikers that the words all blur into one. Others look to celebrities, like Taylor Swift and her epic Eras Tour, which inspired a range of baby names in 2023.

Times are changing, though, and according to the experts at Nameberry, parents are no longer looking to the A-list for inspiration but rather their everyday surroundings.

In a newly released report looking ahead to the baby name trends for 2025, their research found that parents looking for an ‘easily understood, but not endemically popular’ name for their child are turning to the world around them, finding inspiration in coasts, forests, and even the Grand Canyon.

Some names on the list include Acre, Creek, Shore, Isle and perhaps most surprising, Branch.

‘The new class of nature names goes back to basics’, the Nameberry team said. ‘Sleek, streamlined choices connected to the landscape are populating seemingly everyone’s lists of “names we love but won’t be using.”’

The report states that ‘Cove’, which is also on the list, appeared to spark the trend after lifestyle turned mommy influencer, Aspyn Ovard named her daughter this in 2019.

‘Cove was poised to become an overnight sensation. But the similar-sounding Covid-19 pandemic stopped Cove in its tracks,’ the report states. ‘In 2025, Cove will finally get its due.’

Other names on the list include Cloud, a girl’s name described as carrying a ‘whiff of the hippy’ but with a ‘nice, airy feel’.

Rye is also on the list and is of English and Polish origin. Meaning ‘cavalryman, messenger’, it can also be a nickname or a shortened version of Ryder, Riley or Ryan.

Another name on the list is Canyon, a Spanish-originated name, as is the girl’s name Valley. The latter was potentially inspired by Teen Mom star Kailyn Lowry, who chose the name for her daughter in February.

Landscape-inspired names aren’t the only trend emerging for 2025 babies. Nameberry also found nine other trends, including Safe Haven Names, which include Mecca, Meadow and Sahalom.

Namberry also says that ‘fast fashion’ names are in. Like their fashion counterparts, these are monikers modeled on ‘the genuine articles’, e.g. more traditional names, but with a unique twist. These include names like Mayli, Kendry and Scottlynn.

Elsewhere, Chappell Roan’s Femininomenon is inspiring very camp but feminine names like Juno, a Latin name meaning, ‘queen of the heavens; young’, and the Hebrew name Seraphina, meaning ‘ardent’ and ‘fiery’.

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