13 Poetry-Inspired Baby Names

Annabel

For a girl

In addition to being, like, really pretty, it’s also the name of the last complete poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe.

Eliot

For a boy

He can say he was named for T.S. or George, depending on his mood.

Maya

For a girl

With a namesake like Maya Angelou, she’s destined for nothing short of greatness.

Emerson

For a boy or girl

Inspired by Ralph Waldo.

Whitman

For a boy

Hey, did you guys know Walt Whitman was a volunteer nurse during the Civil War? Little Whit certainly will.

Evangeline

For a girl

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 narrative poem  "Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie," of course.

Byron

For a boy

We having a feeling this dude—named for noted Romantic Lord Byron—will have a sensitive side.

Miranda

For a girl

As in the titular character of the W.H. Auden poem, not our secret favorite Sex and the City character.

Ezra

For a boy

You know, like the American expat Ezra Pound.

Gwendolyn

For a girl

An homage to American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (who was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), you can call this little cutie Gwen.

Pablo

Pablo Neruda became known as a poet when he was just ten years old, so yeah, we've got high hopes. 

Larkin

For a girl

British poet Philip Larkin’s early pen name—Brunette Coleman—is a bit less practical.

Vincent

For a boy

Naming your little guy after Pulitzer Prize-winner and noted feminist activist Edna St. Vincent Millay will set him up for a life of respecting *all* people.